Bits: BA to buy Finnair?, new eGates at T5 – or pay £12.50 at Gatwick, free Azimo FX transfers

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• Callum says:

  26 Oct26 October 04:17

  Azimo was particularly good for Argentina, where they provide a rate close to the illegal black market rates as opposed to the awful legal exchange rates last time I was there.

  • Craig says:

    26 Oct26 October 06:23

    Has anybody sent money to themselves in Argentina then went to collect in person?

    • Callum says:

      26 Oct26 October 06:53

      Yes…

      • fiona says:

        26 Oct26 October 08:25

        Interesting. We are there in april

        • Callum says:

          26 Oct26 October 17:44

          You get a better deal if you change US dollars (or possibly British pounds) on the streets but I had no cash (NEVER use an ATM or pay by card in Argentina!) and using a proper company takes away the risk.

• Richard says:

  26 Oct26 October 07:16

  I used the new gates at T5 last week. There are more of them than the old model but you scan your passport after going through the entrance gate rather than before going in and have to hold your passport in place while it takes your photo. The place to stand is a bit far from the passport scanner, so those with short arms stand too close and not on the foot marks. They are concentrating on holding the passport in place and looking at the camera but don’t notice their feet are in the wrong place. Because of this the machine takes longer to recognize their face.

  • JQ says:

    26 Oct26 October 07:48

    I can’t see without my glasses, but the gates both in the UK and Australia don’t let me through unless I remove them. I’ll probably be confused by the new gates for a while.

    If there is nobody at all in the queue, then it is faster than using the gates if there is a straight path to the human (rather than zig-zagging around the tensas)

    I assume EEA/Swiss citizens who use an ID card to travel still need to see the human?

    • JFSV says:

      26 Oct26 October 09:38

      I believe that will still be the case. Fairly annoying, but I just prefer not travel with my EU passport where I can travel easier with the smaller card-size EU ID card. That means though extra time at the line…

• Alan says:

  26 Oct26 October 07:42

  I’d be delighted if the Finnair purchase happened, especially with the EDI route – off to HEL to go East or DUB to go West, all we need is APD to go too!

  Glad they’re putting more and better ePassport gates in. UK passports work in Oz on their ePassport gates and they work very well (and help avoid massive queues!) Now if only they’d bring back Fastrack for T5 transfers and actually fix the security queuing issues!

  • James67 says:

    26 Oct26 October 09:03

    My concern is that an AY purchase might spell the end of their £1100ish sales from UK to Asia. I was hoping I could count on a couple of those a year, taking the pressure of my need.to collect avios and remove the hassle of exEU flights. It now looks like we will not see an APD cut before 2017. I am also concerned at the mangemnt at EDI: allowing four carriers on the CPH route will likely be to the detriment of SAS and connecting passenges. Competition is great but needs to be carefully managed from airports where the ceiling on demand is not that high. I’d be happier with no more than one LCC per route out of EDI. I believe GLA used to have such a policy but with Ryanair now there, I’m not sure whether it was the airline or the airport that blinked first.

    • Erico1875 says:

      26 Oct26 October 10:02

      If the numbers dont stack, you wont need to worry about SAS. Ryanair will pull the plug pronto, t as they did with RAK

      • James67 says:

        26 Oct26 October 11:20

        Hope so!

    • CV3V says:

      26 Oct26 October 11:08

      I think all these new routes, especially letting Ryanair in, is a result of the (welcome) BAA sell off of EDI and GLA who are now able to properly compete with each other. The City Deal funding will allow the construction of the Glasgow Airport Rail Link (a tramline wasn’t considered wise ;-)).

      • James67 says:

        26 Oct26 October 11:32

        I would prefer to see the respective operators combine their equity and, with support from government, and create a single new airport someplace near Falkirk to maximise both road and rail connectivity and hopefully povide better travel options overall. I wouldn’t bet on the GLA rail link until it’s up and running. After all. they botched the opportunity to have an EDI rail link in the current rail upgrade, presumbly to save oennies but in truth to avoid further risk to the tram fiasco.

        • CV3V says:

          26 Oct26 October 14:09

          funny you mention that, i had a lot of visitors this year from Oz who couldn’t understand the need for 2 international airports so close together. I had a hard time trying to justify it. Mind you Aussies cant comprehend town and cities being so close to each other.

          Dont think the Scottish government will be up for it though, they already own Prestwick!

        • Alan says:

          26 Oct26 October 14:16

          Just explain to them we need them because of all the different accents we have only 50 miles apart 😉

          Agree if planning from scratch a central airport with excellent high speed links would make more sense, seems unlikely it’ll happen now though. The decision to not add a train station at EDI was incredibly shortsighted though, would have been an easy win.

        • Stu R says:

          27 Oct27 October 05:26

          That’s all well and good, but GLA is 30 miles from us (Troon) and it’s nightmare enough to get to ‘as is’ so we pay a very reasonable £35 for a taxi – a new airport 20 miles further away would be to the detriment of those living in Ayrshire for sure (well at least those whose aspirations run beyond Palma, Malaga, and the Canaries out of PIK)!

        • James67 says:

          27 Oct27 October 08:38

          I used to live not far from you abd just took train to Paisley then bus or taxi to airport. Didn’t find it particularly painful but taxi fare you have seems worth it for two or more. An airport near Falkirk with rail station would be only 20 minutes from Queen street, but it’s true that the connection from Central where necessay would be a pain. I think still worth it though if it brought nuch improved air travel options.

    • Callum says:

      26 Oct26 October 18:00

      I assume it was you criticising competition before – your argument is still absurd! If the route can only handle one or two operators then soon enough only one or two will remain. I still see no logic in you wanting an artifical restriction on airline numbers – unless you particularly want to fly SAS and don’t feel they can compete?

      • James67 says:

        26 Oct26 October 20:37

        I want people to have the option of flying A-B-C on one ticket with one airline or in conjunctions with its partners. That is in the interests of passengers generally and if it can be achieved by market interference then so be it, I see nothing absurd about it. Clearly BAA didn’t either. And yes, you are absolutely right, I suspect/fear SAS would be the first of the four carriers to go, and no I don’t want that so would prefer it had EDI refused Ryanair access at the the expense of greater competion to protect SAS which can offer A-B-C. The vast majoity of passengers don’t give a toss about corporate profits, market principles or competition, they care about opportunity, cost and conveniemce. It’s perfectly obvious to most that free markets all to often fail to deliver what they want.

        • Callum says:

          26 Oct26 October 22:07

          Of course it’s absurd. Because it’s convenient for YOU to fly A-B-C with one airline (which you’d still be able to do without SAS anyway…) you want to force competing airlines out of the route and therefore force their customers to go with someone else.

          At best that’s incredibly selfish. I personally don’t fly SAS because they’re virtually never the cheapest option – Edinburgh should therefore kick them out so the other airlines can prosper.

        • James67 says:

          26 Oct26 October 23:12

          I get your point but at the end of the day I would prefer to see more choice of A-B-C options out of EDI and GLA even at the cost of some extra competition on individual A-B routes. I don’t think it’s selfish at all, I think it’s just common sense way to keep a good balance of options for passengers entering and leaving Scotland. It’s not that long ago since we had little choice other than A-LHR-C with BA or BMI but things are now improving substantially, especislly exEDI. I don’t think it’s in general interest to choke the life out of our A-B-C options by allowing too much competition by LCCs. I don’t have any preference for SAS, I have only flown them twice A-B-C in last seven years, but I would like to see them survive on the route because they can provide options for passengers that the LCCs cannot.

        • Callum says:

          27 Oct27 October 15:39

          James – absolutely not. If you want to fly SAS then it makes sense to WANT them protected from competition, but in no way, shape or form does it justify legislation or airport rules to forcefully implement it.

          I don’t care how you spin it , forcefully removing someone else’s preferred flights to promote your own preferred flights is selfish. Period.

    • Ian says:

      26 Oct26 October 19:04

      SAS keep being trigger happy with their cancellation button on the EDI-CPH, so frankly they’d be no great loss. Almost solely use Easyjet and Norwegian to CPH and will consider FR. Flights regularly full – it’s a route that can take the capacity.

• Richard F says:

  26 Oct26 October 07:42

  Finnair should start a Haneda route, leaving around 2 am and arriving into Helsinki early am would allow great onward connections to the rest of europe. Oneworld is the only alliance missing an overnight flight to europe from Japan. From Haneda Frankfurt (ANA) and Paris (AF) are the most desirable flights and as such usually carry a premium.

  • James67 says:

    26 Oct26 October 09:24

    All the airlines would probably prefer to fly to Haneda but it has only recently opened up to regional and lonhaul carriers and access remains difficult, but improving all the time.

  • Tom says:

    27 Oct27 October 07:24

    Slightly dog-legged return journey, but Qatar have a 00:30 service to Doha which I think connects back to eg LHR OK. Not as efficient as the Finnair routes though.

• Alexis says:

  26 Oct26 October 07:43

  The new epassport at T5 have been running since mid Septmeber – I don’t know up who told you they only opened last week? They are quicker than the old ones as well.

  • Sussex bantam says:

    26 Oct26 October 08:07

    Yep – used them several times. Much better than the previous incarnation…

  • Sussex bantam says:

    26 Oct26 October 08:08

    Yep – used them several times. Much better than the previous incarnation…

    However they were taking some photos last week with a professional camera crew when I came through so I’m guessing this was the ‘official’ opening…

  • Rob says:

    26 Oct26 October 08:47

    The ‘official’ launch was last week – they had an opening ceremony!

    • David says:

      26 Oct26 October 09:01

      Used the new eGates yesterday – amazing service – from landing to collecting 2 suitcases to getting to the Underground in about 20 minutes. Are we going to miss the hour long queues soon??

      • helper says:

        26 Oct26 October 11:44

        I’ve used them twice so far and they’re great. In both cases have waited no more than 30 seconds for them to become free, whilst watching the many unhappy faces in the other queue. Not sure why they weren’t introduced sooner

    • Danksy says:

      26 Oct26 October 10:45

      We used in September – People queing to use them were like dummies and not going forward until called by someone marshalling them. Anything to speed up arrivals is welcome for me… a few times we’ve been caught in a backlog after a couple of A380’s have landed. It’s a shame that the ticket class doesn’t let you use fastrack if you’re a resident!

  • The_Real_A says:

    26 Oct26 October 11:07

    And makes a great change to the old ones. On the final time arriving via the old design, about 50% were not operational. Those that failed had the windows XP logo on the screen…

    Also to the right of the machine are two manned stations – when i arrived the officials were looking very bored, and doing nothing so i used them instead. Every minute helps.

• Simmo says:

  26 Oct26 October 08:03

  Is there any way to know the average Passport wait times at gatwick? (Long shot… But the US have a website!)

  Travelling through LGW at the following times:
  9pm Tues night
  9.30pm Mon night

  • Waribai says:

    26 Oct26 October 08:30

    Never really had problems. Always use Gatwick North these days but I went through there “en famille” a couple of weeks ago at 6pm and the EU queues were horrendous. My wife is a non-EU citizen though and so we went through that line instead which took us about 30mins I’d say.

    • Simmo says:

      26 Oct26 October 10:30

      Thanks – Think I will book the first 9pm one and then see the queues for the following week.
      I want to get into that Sofitel lounge asap for a few glasses of wine before its cleared away!

      • Danksy says:

        26 Oct26 October 10:47

        Gatwick is pretty awful IMHO when compared to Heathrow.. I’ve been through in as quick as 20 mins before, worst ever was just over an hour.

      • Waribai says:

        26 Oct26 October 12:18

        If you email Sofitel ahead they should give you a couple of vouchers for the bar if you are arriving in late

        • Brian says:

          26 Oct26 October 17:09

          They give you those anyway, if you have Silver status or above…

        • Simmo says:

          26 Oct26 October 17:29

          It was deffo worth the email! – Just confirmed an upgrade to a Luxury room from the standard in my booking (2 levels up). and lounge should be open for a couple of hours after my arrival (hopefully if BA stick to their side of the deal!) – Accor Plat

• Simmo says:

  26 Oct26 October 08:06

  If we see BA purchase these ‘ex-eu’ airlines are we likely to see the cheap fares of late disappear?

  I understand APD is low or close to zero in those countries, but nothing would stop BA placing their own airline ‘tax’?

  • James67 says:

    26 Oct26 October 09:34

    Replied to that effect on fares to Allans comment earlier, I share your concerns.However, ome thi g i AYs favour is shorter routes so less fuel burn allows them to offer lower fares. The question is more whether IAG would want to increasd the profit margins and reduce competitive edge over BA exLHR. However, IB have had some great fares on routes operated by BA so the omens don’t seem so bad.

• Tim Millea says:

  26 Oct26 October 08:10

  Are the new e-passport gates fully automated yet? I know the ones at manchester just send a video feed to an officer in a booth who manually compares the live image to the one on the passport file and decides whether it is the same person. If in doubt the person is rejected then sent to join the regular line. They were meant to be an aid to productivity but with around five gates, with usually two out of order, another memeber of staff required to tell people how to use them and their extreme slowness they must surely be counterproductive. The regular line is often shorter and I use that instead.

  Perhaps the new ones use face-recognition at last?

  • Rob says:

    26 Oct26 October 08:43

    If the LHR ones fail, you go to the front of the queue. If you have a non chip passport, I would be tempted to pretend to try it out and then go to the desk.

    Can’t do this with kids as the staff will stop you approaching.

    • Will says:

      26 Oct26 October 08:59

      Only works if they don’t have someone checking for the chip logo on the entry to the queuing system for the automated booths. They had someone checking last night.

      These booths are the same design as at AMS although seemed to be much more efficient.

    • Simmo says:

      26 Oct26 October 09:58

      Haha! – Well the chip in my ‘new’ passport is apparently broken (its only 2 years old).

      I always try the gates and get sent to the staff to check manually.
      I’m pretty sure they have a scripted sentence to tell me the cost of a replacement each time.

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