"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 20:16:36 on Thu,
15 Jan 2009, Neil Williams remarked:
Why St P?

For connections to you-rope?

Or better still, direct services that don't actually stop at St P.

tim

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 20:18:58 on Thu,
15 Jan 2009, Neil Williams remarked:
International transfer business doesn't provide a lot to the UK
economy.

It "tops up" the long haul flights that wouldn't have been economic to run
otherwise. So the transfer passengers are assisting UK residents ability
to fly almost anywhere in the world daily.

I don't buy this arguement.

Most of the places that business people want to fly to, that are currently
served from LHR, would have have more than enough frequency if they were
supported by the UK demand alone. I accept that there are one or two places
(like say, Nairobi) that need connecting pax but most don't.

Claiming that we need 10 flights a day to FRA so that Germans can connect
onto flights to NYC (or Americans in the reverse direction) is a nonsense,
yet because of the way that tickets are sold, I bet quite a few do.

Personally, I don't believe that we should be encouraging this traffic.

tim

On Jan 15, 9:22*pm, "tim....." wrote:
"Roland Perry" wrote in message

...

In message , at 20:18:58 on Thu,
15 Jan 2009, Neil Williams remarked:
International transfer business doesn't provide a lot to the UK
economy.

It "tops up" the long haul flights that wouldn't have been economic to run
otherwise. So the transfer passengers are assisting UK residents ability
to fly almost anywhere in the world daily.

I don't buy this arguement.

Most of the places that business people want to fly to, that are currently
served from LHR, would have have more than enough frequency if they were
supported by the UK demand alone. *I accept that there are one or two places
(like say, Nairobi) that need connecting pax but most don't.

I'm flying to Hyderabad next month on a direct BA flight (the same one
I went on in December). When I went last time, at least 25% of the
passengers I saw were transfer passengers - mostly from the US.

Most places aren't New York...

Claiming that we need 10 flights a day to FRA so that Germans can connect
onto flights to NYC (or Americans in the reverse direction) is a nonsense,
yet because of the way that tickets are sold, I bet quite a few do.

Indeed, and if ~all the transfer pax at LHR were doing FRA-LHR-JFK,
then it'd be pretty much non-beneficial for the rest of us. But the
average transfer journey AFAICT looks a lot more like Vancouver-
Hyderabad than Frankfurt-New York.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

On Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:11:01 -0000, "tim....."
wrote:


"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 20:16:36 on Thu,
15 Jan 2009, Neil Williams remarked:
Why St P?

For connections to you-rope?

Or better still, direct services that don't actually stop at St P.

You don't understand the rules of the game. Only London is allowed to
have direct links to the rest of the world.

In article ,
(Recliner) wrote:

Most C, J and F class pax check-in online, travel with little
luggage and go straight to the lounge, so they're not visible for
long (though that can be a bit of hike in LHR T5, as you have to
come down and then go up again after going through security -- they
don't want you to bypass the shops). And most no longer wear suits
to fly.

And, of course, many/most Y class LHR pax are also travelling on
business, specially on the European routes (leisure pax take a more
convenient, cheaper flight from their local airport). You don't see
many families in LHR, except those travelling on long-haul routes
which only fly from Heathrow.

Huh? That would be why my family travelled out and in through Heathrow at
Christmas then?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 16 Jan, 00:41, wrote:

In article ,
(Recliner) wrote:

Most C, J and F class pax check-in online, travel with little
luggage and go straight to the lounge, so they're not visible for
long (though that can be a bit of hike in LHR T5, as you have to
come down and then go up again after going through security -- they
don't want you to bypass the shops). And most no longer wear suits
to fly.

And, of course, many/most Y class LHR pax are also travelling on
business, specially on the European routes (leisure pax take a more
convenient, cheaper flight from their local airport). You don't see
many families in LHR, except those travelling on long-haul routes
which only fly from Heathrow.

Huh? That would be why my family travelled out and in through Heathrow at
Christmas then?


Agreed - Recliner's picture of a family-free Heathrow is not one I
recognise either.

In message , at 21:22:31 on Thu, 15
Jan 2009, tim..... remarked:

International transfer business doesn't provide a lot to the UK
economy.

It "tops up" the long haul flights that wouldn't have been economic to run
otherwise. So the transfer passengers are assisting UK residents ability
to fly almost anywhere in the world daily.

I don't buy this arguement.

Most of the places that business people want to fly to, that are currently
served from LHR, would have have more than enough frequency if they were
supported by the UK demand alone. I accept that there are one or two places
(like say, Nairobi) that need connecting pax but most don't.

I disagree. It's not hard to find destinations with less than one flight
a day (ie 3 or 4 per week), or where it's clear that a service can only
be supported from major hub cities (with transfer passengers feeding
in).

A recent example is Hyderabad (India's Silicon Valley) where until the
end of last year the only direct flights from Europe were one a day from
AMS and FRA, but BA has now added a daily flight from LHR.

Claiming that we need 10 flights a day to FRA so that Germans can connect
onto flights to NYC (or Americans in the reverse direction) is a nonsense,
yet because of the way that tickets are sold, I bet quite a few do.

The issue here isn't flights to popular destinations like NYC (where you
can also fly to from Manchester, as well as dozens of direct flights
already from LHR). Obviously, the more places are served direct from
London, the less people have to hop over to FRA if that's the only place
with an onward service.

And those direct flights from London need to be supported by transit
passengers from elsewhere in Europe (that don't have their own direct
flights).
--
Roland Perry

tim..... wrote:


When you're in a bust you don't start spending billions on vanity
projects.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The one (and only) good thing about this decision, is that it isn't a
decision to spend their (aka our) money, but to allow a PLC to spend its
money.

If there is no business case for the plan, the banks wont lend BAA the
funds.

tim



but hang on i thought WE owned the banks (the taxpayers one and all have
given the banks[except Barclays who are in bed with mid eastern
investors] copious amounts of ackers to prevent their demise

On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:41:45 +0000, dave hill wrote

The one (and only) good thing about this decision, is that it isn't a
decision to spend their (aka our) money, but to allow a PLC to spend its
money.

If there is no business case for the plan, the banks wont lend BAA the
funds.

but hang on i thought WE owned the banks

No, we have a stake in the banks. That's a VERY different thing to owning
them

On Thu, 15 Jan 2009, EE507 wrote:

Then there's the small issue of the net present value of carbon
emissions. If the 2003 White Paper's ambitions are realised in full,
the cost will be minus £18bn, excluding additional radiative forcing
[1]. Wonderful for UK Plc, coming on top of the perverse subsidies for
aviation resulting from a lack of taxation on fuel and tickets.

Wasn't the Climate Change Act enacted last year too? Which sectors are
expected to make cuts of 80% to allow aviation's to increase?

Bloody hell, our only hope is the Tories getting in and sticking to
their pledges.

So basically, we're ****ed, then?

tom

--
Oh, and sometimes in order to survive you have to drink the irradiated
water from an old toilet. -- Jon, on Fallout