Government considering Mixed Mode to allow Heathrow extra 120,000 movements per year
 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...=feeds-newsxml

Also Emirates has been pushing the Government to allow it to introduce night flights to LHR to increase its A380 service to 7 daily

Still believe a 3rd runway is the answer or Heathrow North at Northolt

I'd like to see some BA flights that arrive/leave at DXB at more convenient times.

At the moment, you either arrive at 7:30am, or 11:30pm which means you either waste the first night, or have to pay for an extra day or 1/2 day (depending on the mood of the reservations manager) in order to get an early check in, same thing with leaving, you either have to be up at silly o'clock in the morning to make the morning flight or check out of your hotel and hang around for hours before taking the 02:00am flight.

The other option is of course to pay for an extra night in the hotel, but at £300+ per night this is rather annoying.

you could always fly on one of the 5 daily Emirates flights to LHR, or the 3 daily Emirates flights to LGW

However I agree to an extent. I would like to see more BA flights to Dubai perhaps increase to 3 daily.

Or choose a cheaper hotel :D The 5* Le Meridien is around £60 this time of year.

Do you really want us to believe that Emirates has that many A380s that it can send seven of them to LHR every day? :confused::confused::confused::confused:

Errr... Yes. Emirates has around 90 delivered or on order.

Well, yes that is what I'll probably do next time, for the first night at least.

I thought BA already had three flights a day to DXB, although only two operate with four cabins.

There is a 747 on the lunchtime departure from LHR returning as a red-eye and a 777 and 767 flying overnight from LHR and turning into the daylight flights back from DXB.

I remember there was a time when BA had five daily to DXB. This was back in 2007/8 IIRC. :)

Just two at the moment according to the BA app. I don't know if that changes during the peak season.

Let's move this over to UK and Ireland.

Prospero
Moderator: BAEC forum

They arrive at this time, of course, to capture the return traffic and to land at a time that is convenient for these passengers to then get onward flights to North America and Europe once they have arrived in London.

So any thoughts on mixed mode itself? I know they've been trialling it since last year but how exactly would LHR implement it - I've seen suggestions that it would use spare capacity on a runway when there's a disparity between landings and take offs so - for example - the early morning long haul rush into LHR would have landings on both runways as there are relatively few take offs at that time.

Because of this nation's inability to build anything without 11 reviews, years of 'consideration' and 12 consultations this is great because nothing would need to be built.
Extra capacity could be added, LHR movements could increase from 85 an hour to 108 an hour allowing LHR to have the same amount of maximum hourly movements as AMS (which can only operate 3 runways due to noise restrictions). Plus it would narrow the gap with FRA, MAD and CDG (all 120 movements an hour).
Perhaps a few new concourses such as Terminal 5D and more terminal extensions would be needed for the 120,000 extra flights to park etc.
This would be brilliant. Sure it would only last 10 years before LHR is at full capacity again but this really gives us a chance to use this breathing space (10 years) to start serious planning of either a new hub (Stansted or Thames Estuary) or a third runway.

If this happens does anyone have any guesses on what new routes/added frequencies will appear???

My guess

Etihad have stated they wish to increase flights to Abu Dhabi from 3 to 5 daily
Emirates to Dubai 5 to 7 daily
Air China to Beijing 1 to 2 daily
Korean Air to Seoul 1 to 2 daily
China Southern to Guangzhou 3 weekly to 1 daily
Garuda Indonesia to Jakarta 3 weekly
Philippine Airlines to Manila 3 weekly
Avianca to Bogota 1 daily
Lan Chile to Santiago 1 daily

British Airways to Shanghai 6 weekly to 1 daily
British Airways to Sao Paulo 1 daily to 2 daily
British Airways to Mexico City increase from 4 weekly to 1 daily

Virgin will start services to Rio de Janeiro and Toronto

any others???

This is a great idea for the short term future, even if a third runway was planned it would take years to build so mixed mode is a good immediate short term fix.

For the medium term future a third runway at Heathrow is a necessity, Gatwick could build 4 more runways and it still wouldn't solve capacity issues because Heathrow is the hub for the UK, Gatwick/Stansted/Luton etc are either point to point flights or feeding other airlines hubs.

For the long term future I think Borris Johnson International Airport would actually be a good idea, because even if a third runway was built then eventually a fourth would be required, and where would that go? On the motorway which surrounds Heathrow?

Iv'e got a funny idea though that the government will do lots of reviews and talking and drag it out until the next general election, then it's up to the succeeding government to make the difficult decision.

I'd be interested to see when the government complete this 'Aviation Review'. If they start with a bias view to new runways then it will be a sham.

Come on David Cameron, time to take this 'decisive action' you speak about so regularly.