Links to the East of England from ME?

[too_much]

Is anyone aware of any direct flights that could link UAE with the east of England?

Stansted or Norwich etc?

If no are there any plans for this part of the world?

[jack schidt]

Norwich has a runway length of 1841m and is too short to operate from for the EK aircraft to get to the Middle East. Newcastle is 2329m and considered short also.

As LHR and LGW and BHX are all served with lots of frequency, I cannot see Stanstead getting any lookin I am afraid, except for a diversion! :p

jack

[Wizofoz]

I've actually heard rumors that Stansted is on the card.

[kipper the dog]

Agree wizz, that rumour has been doing the rounds on and off for a while. Also heard a while back that EK were looking at trans atlantic stuff from STN as well, think that might be a bit far fetched though. Don't think BA would be too chuffed about that.

[Saint]

Now LGW and LHR are all A380 flights. If they are all full and no more landing slots available, then STN seems an obvious next step. I doubt BA have much say over who lands at STN but I have been wrong before.

[Emma Royds]

BA won't stand up with much of a fight to the ME3, as Qatar now have a stake in IAG.

Willie Walsh from BA commented with the following last year:

"I think their (ME3) business model is very smart and absolutely fine from my point of view. I don’t buy into this artificial support that some airline CEOs claim they have. I don’t see any evidence of that and we are happy to compete with them and co-exist."

Expansion within the UK is for the taking with very little resistance I would say, even if this involves fifth freedom routes through the UK.

Interesting to note that they are developing RNAV approaches for LHR with a slightly steeper profile. The thin edge of the wedge I would say for development of night time RNAV steep approaches into LHR. It will not come soon but EK will be pushing this as far as they can I would say. Furthermore I doubt that Sir TC has changed his mindset from 2009 from when he was quoted in the UK press as wanting night time flights into LHR. This would place less pressure on the likes of considering STN, which has been a big failure to date with long haul routes from both west and east of the UK.

Simple plan 'means no need for third Heathrow runway' 29 Nov 2009 (http://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/nov/29/theairlineindustry-heathrow-third-runway)