Heathrow lifts the daily passenger cap – for now

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• Ian says:

  28 Oct28 October 06:53

  It might be helpful to tell us which two days of the week the new service operates!

  • Rhys says:

    28 Oct28 October 09:38

    Sorry, was in originally but I rewrote a couple lines several times over and must have got lost at some point!

    • Rob says:

      28 Oct28 October 09:42

      I added it in for you!

• The real Swiss Tony says:

  28 Oct28 October 07:07

  Tuesday & Friday. Also it’s showing as having business class, which when I used them a few years back thought was very good. If I recall correctly, the 2020 flights were Y only.

  • James Harper says:

    28 Oct28 October 16:16

    I agree – Aegean business class is definitely much better than that of an airline closer to home!

• Colin MacKinnon says:

  28 Oct28 October 07:23

  Had a basic Aegean ticket from Athens to Tirana the other week.

  Priority Pass lounge was “full”, and I raised my eyebrows a little.

  Here, saud the reception, is a pass for the new Aegean lounge just down the corridor.

  Well, it’s one of the best lounges I’ve every been in. Great food, drinks and runway views!

  • Skywalker says:

    28 Oct28 October 19:40

    I need your eyebrows.

• Richie says:

  28 Oct28 October 07:46

  A big IAG order for A220s would be great.

  • Rhys says:

    28 Oct28 October 09:38

    Yes, I would love to see some at CityFlyer.

    • Nick says:

      28 Oct28 October 09:52

      We all would love to see them at BACF, but LCY won’t allow it as they don’t have room to handle them other than at a couple of gates. And if shiny new aircraft can’t operate to LCY, what’s the point?

      • Rhys says:

        28 Oct28 October 10:08

        Isn’t part of their redevelopment plan to have bigger gates?

        • patrick C says:

          29 Oct29 October 06:46

          Correct. Presumably if you order them now they would arribe at the same time

  • TimM says:

    28 Oct28 October 09:42

    I wonder if I wanted to buy an A220 to operate out of Manchester whether I could get finance? I would configure it with a little extra legroom and serve champagne, Concord-style.

• Nick Burch says:

  28 Oct28 October 08:48

  BA customer services told me yesterday that they’re still waiting 4 months for Heathrow to issues airside passes to new hires, across both cabin crew and ramp staff.

  Maybe Heathrow need to stop blaming everyone else, and sort out their inability to issues passes in a timely manner? No good telling the airlines to hire more people, if when the airlines (or their outsourcers) finally find someone they can’t start for nearly half a year…

  • Rob says:

    28 Oct28 October 08:50

    All Heathrow does is send the papers to the Government … I doubt their intervention in the middle adds more than a day or two.

    My understanding is that you need a FULL work history (covering literally every single day) for the last 5 (?) years. Every employer must be contacted and must verify what you wrote. Done a lot of gig economy work? Good luck with that. Employer went bust in the pandemic? Good luck with that. I think anyone who has worked for the same company for the last 5 years can be done quickly.

    • Nick Burch says:

      28 Oct28 October 09:38

      5 years history, maximum gap 28 days. Can be an employment reference, education reference, or a “gap reference” where someone confirms what you were up to when you weren’t working. If your employer has gone bust or lost all the records, I’m told that HMRC records are accepted as proof you were working.

      • Nick says:

        28 Oct28 October 09:50

        There are three parties involved in issuing heathrow airside passes – the company you’re working for, HAL, and the government. BA and the government are taking about 3-4 weeks between them… the other 3 months are HAL. They handle passes in Glasgow and dismissed half the (already tiny) team that does it during covid. The training for this team is over a year, so they can’t replace them easily. The delays are now entirely down to Heathrow.

    • kevind says:

      28 Oct28 October 10:25

      What if someone is intermittently unemployed for greater than 28 days but didn’t sign on to receive unemployment benefit? Who can verify that? Previous employer and new employer can verify end and start dates respectively but any gaps where you sat in the house for a few months or did some casual cash in hand work I imagine is causing problems. Perhaps it’s not all Heathrow’s fault. The majority of people applying are probably younger folk, who would perhaps “explore themselves” in Asia, inter-rail, do casual bar work etc. This must be a nightmare trying to verify all of that!

• Chad McChadface says:

  28 Oct28 October 09:24

  Aegean are also launching Bristol.

  • Matty says:

    28 Oct28 October 10:39

    I wish they’d launch Thessaloniki to the UK. It’a pain connecting to and from their second city via Athens all the time.

    • yorkieflyer says:

      28 Oct28 October 23:13

      BA fly to Thessalonika

• ChrisBCN says:

  28 Oct28 October 09:30

  “Whilst it’s still not clear where the 737MAX planes will end up – although Vueling is the logical choice”

  Why do you say Vueling is the logical choice? They are currently all Airbus (as are Iberia) so why would they diversify to Boeing, meaning a mixed fleet and training of engineers? BA already have Boeing in the fleet and could put these at Gatwick…

  • Rhys says:

    28 Oct28 October 09:37

    A Boeing 787/777 is not the same as a 737!

    • ChrisBCN says:

      28 Oct28 October 09:52

      Agreed, but you still haven’t said why it is the logical choice

      • ChrisBCN says:

        28 Oct28 October 09:55

        (and also you missed that a 737 has more in common with 777/787 than any Airbus…)

      • Rhys says:

        28 Oct28 October 10:04

        There’s a reason Ryanair operates the 737 over the A320 – it’s smaller and therefore marginally more fuel efficient. It’s why I try and avoid the 737 at all costs, because those few cm make a big difference to seat and aisle width in my experience.

        The other reason is that wherever the 737s go, IAG will need to retrain crew and pilots for operations. It makes more sense to do that at Vueling, in my opinion, than at Gatwick, because if Gatwick or Heathrow goes tits up then they can re-allocate crew. That wouldn’t be possible if BA Gatwick goes Boeing.

        • ChrisBCN says:

          28 Oct28 October 10:38

          The point around reallocating crew is a good one; are they still able to do that under the new contracts? (Or maybe that doesn’t affect pilots)

        • Rui N. says:

          28 Oct28 October 12:16

          That’s not the reason FR operates the 737 at all.

        • His Holyness says:

          28 Oct28 October 13:49

          Blehhh, Ryanair flies the 737 cos it smaller? Oh come on… some of your posts are quite funny.

        • patrick C says:

          29 Oct29 October 07:06

          Sorry that’s rubbish.
          Ryanair operates the 737 because of inheritance coupled with an incredibly cheap purchase price during the crisis. Both 2009 and covid btw.
          As for fuel efficiency per seat, boeing claims to come out ahead but the true numbers don’t show this. The US published figures show a very similar outcome and actually an outperformance of the a320 compared to spec. No airline will use so small theoretical differences in fleet planning as your end results really depend on route plans. Also airbus’ more extended customisation 319/320/321 allow more actual route optimisation.

• Chrisdf says:

  28 Oct28 October 10:23

  Off topic: will there be another buy Marriott points promo in November like last year?

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