In the 747, just remember "Flaps 20, 220". For just about the best descent angle you can get in the terminal area, go to idle, put the gear down, flaps to whatever is allowed by current speed, speedbrakes out if desired, slow to 220, Flaps 20, descend at 220 KIAS. Approaching desired altitude or glidepath, thrust to 40% N1 or more, speedbrakes in, decel and landing flaps as desired.

Works fine, every time!

LAX-NRT, several years ago, still single runway. Considerable snow at NRT, very long delays. Met with an outbound crew in the hotel that evening, met them again at breakfast! A backlog of 6 to 8 aircraft had been cleared push and start and were on their way to the holding point, most delayed by hours, not minutes, when all were ordered to return to their stands, (which had now been occupied by inbounds waiting hours to disembark), lead aircraft protested as he was already at the holding point whereupon all runway lights were switched off due nightly curfew and stayed off. You would not get that at LHR Ken.
The airline I worked for had an early LHR arrival everyday and we never seemed to run out of slots for an early arrival, don't ever remember hearing of QF, CX and other long haul aircraft being required to go into the stack either. Have had to at LGW, fifteen to twenty minutes max, when flying short-haul, several aircraft arriving around time curfew was lifted.

Kansai is a pretty big engineering debacle. It's been sinking way, way faster than expected and vulnerability to flooding has been raised as a concern for at least a decade, probably more, even with the seawalls having been augmented at great cost. Very unfortunate series of events this last week and it's good to hear that things were handled well, given the circumstance, but it seems like the airport itself is only going to become more of a problem as time goes on. Hope for the best, I suppose.

Article in the Seattle Times today sez the runways will be underwater by 2058, given current trends.

Railway Connection
 

I've now heard that it is going to take a month to get the railway running again. The dented and displaced road span will take a lot longer, so there will be a contraflow on the other span for some time to come.

Apparently the rate of settlement has slowed, so perhaps the underlying mud is finally beginning to compact. Regardless, it's difficult to see what else they could do other than keep building those walls taller. It's not like there's many options for a large airport in that region. I don't know how expandable Kobe is, but other than that there's simply no other option that I can see.

I suppose if they did eventually extend the maglev through Nagoya to Osaka then airports to the East/North become more "local" than they already are.

They definitely can't scuttle it. Osaka was the smallest prefecture until they built the airport, the boundaries of which made it the second smallest prefecture. Wouldn't want to go back to being the smallest prefecture - and they're already way into building a new runway!

Looks like they're cracking on with bridge repairs: Japan Times article

Intruder:- someone from the Seattle times should ask the Dutch, they should have been underwater years ago but funnily enough they have more land now than ever.......

it can be done.

Rail Services
 

Rail Services are restored. Two weeks ahead of schedule.

Someone has put in the hours unbending them girders.