SOF

The latest tax at LHR is referred to as a "UK Exceptional Regulatory Charge" which is misleading is it not?

Yes it reflects "the cost of doing business" but is underhand in its description & of course will certainly help alleviate to a small extent any problems with LHR shareholder value & income.

Oh and LHR do it because they can even if they choose so to "hide" it.

Vokes55

yes - if you're willing to treat a night in AMS, Paris, DUB or Madrid as part of a holiday you can save a fortune

I am interested to see what Westjet does.....the report said they are using the slots for Calgary and Vancouver from Terminal 2 and keeping Toronto & Halifax at Gatwick

Very true, the airlines will charge what the market will support and even with LGW and STN being an option to avoid higher prices at LHR this is still true.
Caveat being you can get some really good fares on routes with strong competition, LHR-JFK has price dumping in Y as the frequency is high to support the pointy end. Well, pre COVID anyway, God only knows what that'll look like soon, hopefully bounce back.

As I understand it ...

LHR charges are set by the regulator, otherwise they would be in a monopoly position. In Covid, they have lobbied the regulator that they need to have increased charges to recover their loss in this period, which the regulator has accepted. I would not have. LHR will be in the best position to recover quicker than any other airport, as the slots will rapidly fill back up before anywhere else, including transfers from other airports, Gatwick in particular of course. Now if the Exceptional Charge had been levied at Heathrow, collected by the regulator and used to disburse to the other worse-off airports in compensation, I could see some merit in that. But no, it's going straight out of the door again to Ferrovial and their fellow-traveller investors who just saw Heathrow as a Cash Cow opportunity.

Has the Exceptional Charge been given a time limit, say one or two years?

Taxi waiting fee tripled
 

Next move in the Ferrovial money grab is to triple the fee charged to each taxi picking up at the airport

Heathrow to treble taxi pick-up fee from July | Financial Times (ft.com)

Given that the taxi trade has been decimated by Covid and the lack of passengers at the airport, plus the competition from Ubers who don't pay anything, it just seems mad. I would have thought they would want to support one of their business components and partners, not the opposite.

An accurate report, not behind a paywall. They are recovering the cost of taxi waiting sites. Hope they end up with a taxi boycott.
It also started a few years ago, banning local private hire vehicles collecting passengers, by insisting they go into a car park, min £3.50 +

https://londonnewstime.com/taxi-pick...ly/185163/amp/

Uber continue to pick up at the set-down areas for nothing. They just drive round and round, making a nuisance of themselves.

Regarding the black taxis, this is just exploiting a loophole in the regulations which a clever HAL beancounter has found. There is of course little operating cost in the taxi waiting area, but they can load the supposed asset value of the asphalt etc into the calculations, where the regulator requires them to charge only a fee to cover their costs. With next to no business this last year, they can claim a "loss" from the few taxis around, and thus "recover the loss" by tripling the charge.

If the regulator had any balls they would reject all this outright.

There has been a taxi waiting park as far back as 1975, pre HAL, Ferrovial have monetised it calling it a service. The current park is on waste land, no need for shops or office building. Re Uber, HAL told them to ring fence their communications to keep drivers away, to prevent this current action, and make them pay for parking.
You can park your car nearby in the west, in the green belt, much cheaper than any service commissioned by HAL.

May have been asked before: During the reduction to one operational runway, did HAL bring forward any runway maintenance to save time and money later? My guess is No.

Yes - during the first lockdown 09R/27L was closed permanently for a few weeks to carry out significant maintenance. Now that work is complete it is routine maintenance on whichever runway is closed for the week, which makes planning these routine works a lot simpler..

The move to single-runway operations was driven by the reduced demand. The opportunity to do maintenance on the closed runway was a consequence of that.

T3 being readied for full action as of third week in May..
Wonder if the T5 One-Worlders will stay put ?

I'm sure Virgin will be pleased to be able to offer their own ground experience, upper class wing, etc to their passengers at T3.

I think the plan was for AA to move to T5 even before COVID, so I doubt that they will move back, there was some talk of an AA, new BA or dual-branded lounge at T5C and a refurbishment of the lounge complexes at T5, but that has all gone quiet. The other one world lounges at T3 were Qantas and Cathay. Qatar and Malaysia were at T4, no sign of that terminal opening, so quite a lot of displacement still, even with T3 reopening.

I think American really want to be in T5 but in normal times, as per summer 2019 they have 21 heavies per day and even BA were split between T3 and T5. Now I know it's all metal neutral and Iberia have been co-located at T5 for years but with BA Gatwick drastically downsized until next summer at the earliest, will BA not want to run one single terminal operation rather than split ops in T3? BA also ran long haul flights out of T3 with MIA, DEN, PHX and LAS alongside ACC, NBO,CPT and YVR.

Options :
AA split ops T3/T5 with JFK plus key others in T5, remainder in T3
AA move everything into T5 leaving BA to move some of their own flights to T3 or LGW

Neither is tidy but I suspect HAL will move all of AA into T5 as BA are moving to T8 at JFK and there's give and take on both sides.

Would think the focus on what routes operate from T5 will centre around connections. If BA/AA feel having AA in T5 suits feed for both airlines I’d expect them to stay.

much of the ex LGW services had minimal feed so. I would think it makes sense to focus on the LGW at T3 along with, space depending, ex T3 routes for the same reason

can’t see AA or HAL favouring splitting AA’s operation across two terminals then possibly see how things go and then assess whether LGW is required for summer 22

as a side note, I wonder if the slot waivers are extended thru winter 21/22 or not, or at least partly reintroduced to say 50/50 rather than 80/20

Isn't there some planning permission regulation on the annual passenger throughput of T5, x million per year, which was behind BA's split operation (and when one was brought in from T3, sending another one the other way to balance), rather than pushing for the third satellite to be built.

The reopening of T3 has been pushed back:

https://www.executivetraveller.com/n...eopening-delay

Any view on when dual runway ops are expected to return?

Only when planned movement levels dictate. I seem to remember from the first lockdown a figure of 450 - 500 daily movements was the trigger. Even then dual ops may only be for part of the day.