Almost all the investment in Gatwick was money planned by BAA anyway.

Ditto, all the investment in Heathrow has been planned by BAA for years.

Heathrow and Gatwick are not in competition, never have been, Heathrow's competition is the hub airports on the continent and in Dubai.

King Khalid is also a military airport.
It has 3 'sections', domestic, international and military.

I'm sure it'll take less than 11 hours to colour it in.

I love the pods.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/4017267...57628878934333


A bit like a taxi, jump in at the pod station and it scuttles off to the parking area in no time at all.

I work in a similar situation, but you still can't beat getting together once or twice a year to actually meet the people you are working with and get to know them as something more than a name on an email.

I don't travel as much as I used to as jobs which used to have to be done on-site can now be done remotely over a secure connection but when you are working on big projects it is still useful to meet occasionally. People tend to do business with people that they know and trust and it takes a huge leap of faith to give a big contract to a bunch of people you never meet.

Very cool

The big improvement at LHR was the opening of T5 (after the initial problems with baggage etc) which put almost all of BA's operations into the one terminal (they still have a few codeshares in T3)

Gatwick has really improved under new management. Under BAA it was always a lower priority for development. There's still room for improvement but it's much better than it was 5 years ago.


Well, they are currently rebuilding Terminal 2. Once that starts to be used next year the next stage will be to knock down Terminal 1 and combine the two into a new single terminal called "Heathrow East" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Heathrow_Terminal_2

The long term plan for Heathrow is to replace the current mess of terminals with a "toast rack". Something like this: http://im.media.ft.com/content/image...144feabdc0.img

Its noticably louder when it flies over here. Probably because its so low.

Wow. And by the look of the aircraft in the foreground, Star Alliance will be bringing some old B707s out of retirement.

Ah, but the A380 is much quieter than other planes when you are aboard.

Cool!

You're not really a staff member are you?

Right, what else is there to discuss?

There's been debates for a long time about a 'third runway'.

Wow, I find that incredibly hard to believe not matter where I might read it from!

Tell us more about this third runway.

Fourth runway.
Technically there's already three there.

I'm going to be the rebel here, but I used City airport today...and it was rather nice. It took me ten minutes from landing to get through, bags, and be standing on the DLR platform.

I love those as well feels very space age.

Do you think the viewing area will ever be re-instated? It used to be on top of the Queen's Building and had a lot of amenities (cafe, shop, toilets)

I was always there (or on top of the car parks) in the early 80s.

You can hear a pin drop in that place. Quietest airport I've been in.

So funny to see this thread about Heathrow. My son is a PHD student in Bangor, he travelled back from Wales late Wednesday night 17/10/12 so my husband could drive him to Heathrow yesterday Thursday. He was on his way to the Neuroscience 2012 meeting in New Orleans where he's doing a presentation. I check his bags Wednesday night, Thursday morning check them again.

His check in time was 11.25am for a 2.20pm flight. We live 60 miles from Heathrow using the M25 Husband arrived in good time 10.30am at 10.32am I received a call " Mum is there a brown envelope anywhere in the house with my passport and flight tickets?" Yes there was on the hall table, the twit had took the envelope out of his bag in the car as they were leaving, decided to come back in and change his coat with the envelope in his hand left it here. Hubby hot foots it back from Heathrow to collect passport arrives at 12 noon, son is now phoning every 2 minutes as he thinks car has morphed into a helicopter, he's screaming down the phone latest check in is now 1.25pm on the dot, hubby made it at 1.23pm.

I'm going to brain him when he gets back.

That's what I've heard, or not heard ha Would love to go on one! How was it?

Expand the airport and build more runways, it's the only option

Interesting study out today shows Boris plan of an estuary airport would create significantly less pollution.

I know you must all have been very stressed, but I absolutely love airport drama stories , hasn't happened to me yet though!