DELLAS

Aer Lingus's new Heathrow home

HEATHROW'S new Terminal 2 will be the new London home to Aer Lingus when it opens its doors in a year's time.

The £2.5bn (€2.9bn) terminal will open its doors on June 4, 2014, with the first aircraft, a United Airlines flight from Chicago, scheduled to land at 05.55.

Terminal 2 will eventually serve 20m passengers a year and be home to 23 Star Alliance airlines, as well as Aer Lingus, Virgin Atlantic, Little Red and germanwings carriers.

http://www.herald.ie/news/aer-lingus...-29323162.html

Looking forward to this move. Will make it alot nicer for those of us that have had to walk the ''Green Mile'' for decades. Also looking forward to a new lounge maybe with some windows ^

irishguy28

Terminal 1 had its green mile.

In Terminal 2, it has been extended to a distance of 2 green miles.

DELLAS

Well I guess it depends on where Aer Lingus park their aircraft. It will certainly be a much nicer experience then it is now in shoe box holding areas and tunnels.

http://www.heathrowairport.com/stati...ochure_LHR.pdf

irishguy28

Aer Lingus' move date has been given as Wednesday, 09 July 2014.

United will be the launch customer for T2, moving in on 04 June 2014, and they will have the terminal to themselves for the first fortnight.

The second move occurs on 18 June, when Air Canada, Air China, and ANA move into their new digs.

The third wave occurs on 02 July, when EVA and Thai Airways move.

Aer Lingus represents the 4th wave.

The last to move will be germanwings, Little Red and US Airways [which may be AA by then anyway and which could therefore AAffect its locAAtion], none of whom are scheduled to move until November 2014 at the earliest.

Turkish Airlines is the only airline impacted that has not yet been assigned a date.

Of course, all these dates are provisional and subject to change.

DELLAS

Aer Lingus are soon to release details of their new lounge in T2 also. I look forward to seeing the artists impressions.

TechnoGeek

Pardon my ignorance...I am new to the travelling community...but what is 'Travelling the Green Mile' !?
My guess is either taxi'ing for what appears to be ages or walking through the long winding T1 corridors. But you can educate me better.

irishguy28

It's the latter.

http://www.independent.ie/business/i...-29129331.html


Pic from http://boardingarea.com/ghettoife/20...itish-airways/

TechnoGeek

Ah. Yup. Thats the first feeling I got when I travelled first time - it takes years from security to gates.
And what I still dont understand is that why do I have to present my boarding card twice (Air Lingus DUB) ?
More so, why dont they check my immigration status on my arrival back from DUB ??
Its a strange terminal!

irishguy28

Do you mean on-board Aer Lingus? Or do you mean on arrival in DUB?

Or do you mean before leaving London?

It's been a while since I flew from LHR to Ireland, but because of the common travel area (travel between the United Kingdom, Ireland, Isle of Man, Channel Islands has never officially required a passport), some UK airports take a picture of you prior to entering security, and then verify that picture by scanning your boarding pass before you are allowed to pass into the "common travel area" part of the airport.

As stated above, there is no legal basis for applying immigration checks on passengers arriving in the UK from the common travel area - so arrivals from Ireland (and the Isle of Man and Channel Islands) are usually treated as "domestic" arrivals.

DELLAS

Yet the Irish seem to have lost the spirit of that agreement and make you stand in line with flights from everywhere else in the world. No CTA lane or clearance at DUB which is quite unacceptable. It was packed the other day when I landed into T2 and spent ages in those snaking lines which were back to the gates ! Bad planning considering its a new Terminal.

The majority of UK airports seem to grasp the CTA idea LGW and LHR are prime examples. Maybe time to scrap it if something is not done at DUB.

irishguy28

The British have tried several times in the past few years to introduce immigration controls (including APIS) on all passengers arriving from outside the island of Great Britain whether by sea or by air. This did not go down well with many in Northern Ireland so the attempts were defeated.

I'm sure that Ireland would prefer if the CTA was de-facto abolished by the UK signing up fully to Schengen - then the Irish airports would be obliged, by law, to provide a separate channel where immigration controls were not required.

As neither the UK nor Ireland wants to re-introduce border controls on the land border (which would be required if arrivals from Northern Ireland were to be exempted from the need to undergo immigration checks when landing in Great Britain under the proposed e-Borders scheme), and as the UK does not want to join Schengen, the CTA is here to stay in its current form.

lyncthom

Border controls in Irish airports are in effect for both jurisdictions and facilitate the absence of such controls in London and other UK airports. In effect the British and Irish authorities operate a " mini-Shengen." The CTA is for UK and Irish citizens only so there would be nothing to stop the Irish authorities having a separate line for CTA eligible arrivals. I make a point of showing a driving licence to prove I am an eligible person for CTA purposes. There are anomalies in the system mostly caused by the land border with Northern Ireland that are too politically sensitive to touch. We should stay away from Shengen. The CTA has worked well over the decades and I see no need to change.

irishguy28

If the UK agreed to fully implement Schengen [and Ireland would in a heartbeat, it's the UK's reluctance that held us back from doing so], it would effectively amount to the expansion of the CTA to include all the other Schengen member states, and not just Ireland. Or you could view it as the "merger" of the CTA with the current Schengen area.

As you say, the CTA has worked well over the decades - so why not EXPAND it?

I can't see how the average traveller would not see that as a good thing - particularly given that it would remove the need for any immigration checks for the vast majority of passengers arriving at Irish airports (given that the burden of being the gatekeeper of the "back-door" to Britain is removed for all arrivals from the majority of Europe). But although the UK apparently trusts Ireland enough to enforce its border sufficiently for their liking, they apparently are not willing to trust their European partners to the same extent.

starflyergold

Grateful if we could slowly return to the main topic of this thread @:-)

starflyergold
Aer Lingus Gold Circle Forum mod team

Dan1113

A driving license only proves you are a resident, not a citizen, of the UK/IE (as any permanent resident can get one) so technically the only way to prove eligibility for the CTA is a passport, ironically enough. Not that this is checked usually of course.

Aberdeen Airport seems to check every single arrival from Dublin, no idea why (police does it instead of border force). I've enquired about it before and was told that a check is allowed if the police requests it for individual flights, and Grampian Police would request it on a daily basis. Maybe that has changed now that we have Police Scotland instead.