Latest news with #PaulCharles
The Independent
17-04-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Dublin, Amsterdam and Spain dominate top Easter holiday destinations
Dublin is way ahead of cities worldwide as the leading destination for Easter travel from the UK, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. During the Easter weekend, 11,282 flights are scheduled to depart UK airports, with more than two million seats. Good Friday is projected to be the busiest day of the weekend, with 2,949 departures – an average of one flight taking off from a UK airport every 30 seconds. More flights will be going to Dublin than anywhere else. Almost 70,000 passengers are heading for the Irish capital between Good Friday and Easter Monday – more than those going to Paris, Madrid and Rome combined. In the top 30 compiled exclusively for The Independen t, Amsterdam takes second place. The Irish and Dutch capitals are followed by the three most popular Spanish airports – Alicante, Malaga and Palma – and, in sixth place, Dubai. Faro, the gateway to the Portuguese Algarve, appears at seventh. Tenerife and Barcelona are eighth and ninth respectively, with Paris CDG taking 10th place. Spain is by far the most popular destination, taking five of the top 10 spots, The remainder of the top 30 provides some intriguing revelations. Turkey is well represented, with Antalya at 11 and Istanbul at 16. The second Turkish Riviera airport, Dalaman, takes 25th spot. The top long-haul destination, Dubai, has almost 50 per cent more capacity than New York – the only US city to appear, in 12th place. But British travellers take Manhattan well ahead of Berlin; the German capital has barely half as many departing seats and appears at 26th. Top ski airport is Geneva, in 13th, with Doha – hub for Qatar Airways – one place behind. In the lower half of the table, five capitals occupy 18th to 22nd positions: Madrid Lisbon Copenhagen Rome Budapest Next along is Krakow in Poland, which remarkably attracts more travellers than the Czech capital, Prague. The final four places in the top 30 are taken by Athens, Nice, Munich and Gran Canaria. Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief executive of the Advantage Travel Partnership, said: 'The robustness of the desire to travel by the British public demonstrates the industry's agility to deliver what UK consumers are looking for. 'City breaks across our travel agent partners are strong for Easter and have proved a popular option for families and couples. With Easter falling later this year, we have also seen greater demand, with late bookings accounting for approximately 40 per cent of total sales – an indication that families are perhaps choosing to travel over Easter rather than at the peak of the summer months.' Paul Charles, chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency, said: 'The Easter period is mostly about short-haul breaks in Europe. 'Except for year-round perennial favourite Dubai, every other destination in the top 10 for seats from the UK is in Europe, proving that closer is more practical and usually more affordable for most British travellers. 'One thing you can guarantee as well is how full these flights will be, so do check in two hours before your flight is due to depart because airports will be very busy.' All the leading holiday airports except Edinburgh have told The Independent their busiest day will be Friday 18 April; at the Scottish capital's airport, Sunday will see the most passengers. Edinburgh is the destination for the most popular domestic route, British Airways from London Heathrow. BA also takes the next three places, with links from Heathrow to Glasgow, Belfast City and Aberdeen. 30 busiest international destinations by seats (scheduled to depart from UK airports over the Easter weekend, 18–21 April) Dublin: 69,217 Amsterdam: 59,631 Alicante: 45,364 Malaga: 45,123 Palma: 42,830 Dubai: 40,417 Faro: 37,580 Tenerife: 36,650 Barcelona: 33,838 Paris: 30,659 Antalya: 29,109 New York: 27,440 Geneva: 27,233 Doha: 24,507 Lanzarote: 23,439 Istanbul: 22,662 Frankfurt: 20,972 Madrid: 20,436 Lisbon: 20,285 Copenhagen: 18,217 Rome: 17,967 Budapest: 16,815 Krakow: 16,512 Prague: 15,846 Dalaman: 15,445 Berlin: 15,379 Athens: 15,272 Nice: 14,929 Munich: 14,605 Gran Canaria: 14,402 10 busiest UK domestic routes by seats (scheduled to depart from UK airports over the Easter weekend, 18–21 April) Heathrow to Edinburgh: 7,353 seats Heathrow to Glasgow: 6,616 seats Heathrow to Belfast (BHD): 4,458 seats Heathrow to Aberdeen: 4,178 seats Stansted to Edinburgh: 4,128 seats Stansted to Belfast (BFS): 3,939 seats Manchester to Belfast (BFS): 3,867 seats Manchester to Heathrow: 3,738 seats Belfast (BFS) to Edinburgh: 3,711 seats Gatwick to Jersey: 3,501 seats
Zawya
21-03-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Heathrow shutdown raises concerns over contingency planning
The closure of Britain's Heathrow Airport is set to affect the global aviation system for days at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, experts say, posing questions about why better contingency planning was not in place at the hub. Experts were in shock at the scale of the outage, which has not been seen since the Icelandic ash cloud of 2010, as they tried to estimate the cost and breadth of the repercussions caused by a fire at a nearby electrical substation that knocked out the airport's power supply and its back-up power. Heathrow processes around 1,300 flights a day, according to Eurocontrol. The blaze, which was reported just after 11 p.m. (2300 GMT) on Thursday, forced planes to divert to airports across Britain and Europe, while many long-haul flights simply returned to their point of departure. The cost of the impact could total around 20 million pounds ($26 million) a day, said Paul Charles, a travel consultant, with no guarantee that Heathrow will reopen on Saturday given the vulnerability of the airport's power supply. "A back-up should be failsafe in the event of the core system being affected. Heathrow is such a vital piece of the UK's infrastructure that it should have failsafe systems," Charles told Reuters. Energy Minister Ed Miliband said the fire had prevented the power back-up system from working and that engineers were working to deploy a third back-up mechanism, adding the government was working to understand "what, if any, lessons it has for our infrastructure". The closure is set to have days-long knock-on effects globally, leaving airline passengers stranded. Airlines' carefully choreographed networks depend on airplanes and crews being in specific locations at specific times. Dozens of air carriers will have to hurriedly reconfigure their networks to move planes and crews around. BACK-UP POWER? "Even if the airport opens hopefully by the end of Friday, there will be impact running on several days because once aircraft are grounded somewhere away from an operation, they are stuck there with the crews operating the flights, and of course the customers, until those crews have been out to have the legally required rest periods," independent air transport consultant John Strickland said. "And if the planes are not back, they can't do the follow-on flights, which means that we get cancellations in the days ahead." Even a few minutes of delay can throw off the day's entire schedule and cause delays in other parts of the flight system. In this case, experts are asking how Heathrow did not have more back-up power units that could be brought on site to restart electricity more quickly. "I can't remember a piece of critical infrastructure being wholly shut down for at least a day because of a fire. I can't think of anything comparable," Tony Cox, an international risk management consultant, said. This is not the first aviation sector outage in Britain that has raised concern across the industry and in the political sphere. An outage of Britain's air traffic control system NATS in 2023 cost over 100 million pounds ($129 million), according to an independent review by Britain's Civil Aviation Authority, raising concerns about the stability of the system. The Heathrow outage, especially if it drags on past Friday, is likely to raise similar alarms and lead to extensive public scrutiny, especially given that under consumer rights law, customers impacted will not be able to seek compensation from airlines as the delays are not their fault. "Who actually picks up the bill ... remains to be seen because it will be a complex discussion and a heavy discussion certainly between the airport, the airlines, the electricity providers, insurance companies, of course, nobody will want to accept responsibility if it's possible not to," Strickland added. ($1 = 0.7730 pounds) (Reporting by Joanna Plucinska and Andrew MacAskill in London, Dan Catchpole in Seattle, Tim Hepher in Paris; Editing by Alison Williams)
Reuters
21-03-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Heathrow shutdown raises concerns over contingency planning
An airplane remains parked on the tarmac at Heathrow International Airport after a fire at a nearby electrical substation wiped out the power at the airport, near London, Britain, March 21, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Summary Travel consultant estimates cost of closure at $26 million a day Airport handles around 1,300 flights a day Minister says government is looking at any lessons for infrastructure LONDON, March 21 (Reuters) - The closure of Britain's Heathrow Airport is set to affect the global aviation system for days at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, experts say, posing questions about why better contingency planning was not in place at the hub. Experts were in shock at the scale of the outage, which has not been seen since the Icelandic ash cloud of 2010, as they tried to estimate the cost and breadth of the repercussions caused by a fire at a nearby electrical substation that knocked out the airport's power supply and its back-up power. Make sense of the latest ESG trends affecting companies and governments with the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter. Sign up here. Heathrow processes around 1,300 flights a day, according to Eurocontrol. The blaze, which was reported just after 11 p.m. (2300 GMT) on Thursday, forced planes to divert to airports across Britain and Europe, while many long-haul flights simply returned to their point of departure. The cost of the impact could total around 20 million pounds ($26 million) a day, said Paul Charles, a travel consultant, with no guarantee that Heathrow will reopen on Saturday given the vulnerability of the airport's power supply. "A back-up should be failsafe in the event of the core system being affected. Heathrow is such a vital piece of the UK's infrastructure that it should have failsafe systems," Charles told Reuters. Energy Minister Ed Miliband said the fire had prevented the power back-up system from working and that engineers were working to deploy a third back-up mechanism, adding the government was working to understand "what, if any, lessons it has for our infrastructure". The closure is set to have days-long knock-on effects globally, leaving airline passengers stranded. Airlines' carefully choreographed networks depend on airplanes and crews being in specific locations at specific times. Dozens of air carriers will have to hurriedly reconfigure their networks to move planes and crews around. BACK-UP POWER? "Even if the airport opens hopefully by the end of Friday, there will be impact running on several days because once aircraft are grounded somewhere away from an operation, they are stuck there with the crews operating the flights, and of course the customers, until those crews have been out to have the legally required rest periods," independent air transport consultant John Strickland said. "And if the planes are not back, they can't do the follow-on flights, which means that we get cancellations in the days ahead." Even a few minutes of delay can throw off the day's entire schedule and cause delays in other parts of the flight system. In this case, experts are asking how Heathrow did not have more back-up power units that could be brought on site to restart electricity more quickly. "I can't remember a piece of critical infrastructure being wholly shut down for at least a day because of a fire. I can't think of anything comparable," Tony Cox, an international risk management consultant, said. This is not the first aviation sector outage in Britain that has raised concern across the industry and in the political sphere. An outage of Britain's air traffic control system NATS in 2023 cost over 100 million pounds ($129 million), according to an independent review by Britain's Civil Aviation Authority, raising concerns about the stability of the system. The Heathrow outage, especially if it drags on past Friday, is likely to raise similar alarms and lead to extensive public scrutiny, especially given that under consumer rights law, customers impacted will not be able to seek compensation from airlines as the delays are not their fault. "Who actually picks up the bill ... remains to be seen because it will be a complex discussion and a heavy discussion certainly between the airport, the airlines, the electricity providers, insurance companies, of course, nobody will want to accept responsibility if it's possible not to," Strickland added. ($1 = 0.7730 pounds) Reporting by Joanna Plucinska and Andrew MacAskill in London, Dan Catchpole in Seattle, Tim Hepher in Paris; Editing by Alison Williams Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Joanna Plucinska Thomson Reuters Joanna reports on airlines and travel in Europe, including tourism trends, sustainability and policy. She was previously based in Warsaw, where she covered politics and general news. She wrote stories on everything from Chinese spies to migrants stranded in forests along the Belarusian border. In 2022, she spent six weeks covering the war in Ukraine, with a focus on the evacuation of children, war reparations and evidence that Russian commanders knew of sexual violence by their troops. Joanna graduated from the Columbia Journalism School in 2014. Before joining Reuters, she worked in Hong Kong for TIME and later in Brussels reporting on EU tech policy for POLITICO Europe.
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How ‘mixed mode' could solve Heathrow's capacity crunch long before a third runway
'If you think a third runway is unpopular, try mentioning 'mixed mode' in polite Home Counties company.' That was the private response of one of the 16 transport secretaries this century when I asked whether they had considered allowing both runways at London Heathrow airport to be used for arrivals and departures at the same time. The shorthand for this technique is 'mixed mode'. For a government obsessively focused on growth, it could unlock extra capacity at the UK's biggest hub for very little additional financial cost – but, as the erstwhile minister indicated, huge political cost. At present, Heathrow dedicates one strip of asphalt to landings and the other to take-offs. The only regular use of mixed mode is between 6am and 7am daily, the busiest hour for arrivals into the airport. Planes are allowed to land on both runways. Intuitively, you might imagine that the most efficient way to operate a two-runway airport like Heathrow is to separate arrivals and departures. In fact, the opposite is true: you can extract more capacity if there is a plane coming into land a few seconds after an aircraft ahead has taken off. Heathrow at its peak has a landing every 80 seconds and a take-off every 80 seconds. But across at Gatwick, air-traffic controllers can manage an arrival and a departure in as little as 65 seconds. Mixed mode adds capacity without the need for another runway. When Sir Howard Davies's Airport Commission looked into mixed mode, they concluded: 'The increased operational flexibility could be used to enhance the resilience of the airport's operations.' Monday was messy this week at Heathrow: 36 flights were cancelled, affecting 5,000 passengers and one Qatar Airways A380 'SuperJumbo' diverted to Amsterdam after a missed approach because there was not room in the system to accommodate another go. Such disruption could become much more rare if Heathrow was open to receiving more flights. Of more interest to the airlines – and, by extension, passengers keen on more choice and lower fares – is that the technique could allow up to 60,000 more flights each year. One senior travel industry figure strongly advocates using mixed mode to increase capacity immediately. Paul Charles, chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency, flies through Heathrow at least twice a month. He told me: 'It's embarrassing to see Heathrow held back by the lack of expansion. Airports in most other major cities are growing substantially as their governments focus on growth. The demand to fly from consumers is certainly there. 'I suggest the government apply a two-phase expansion to Heathrow in particular. It could start immediately by allowing greater use of mixed-mode, with aircraft taking off and landing on the same runways, so unlocking greater capacity and flight volumes. 'Then it could agree to a third runway, say from 2035, subject to certain environmental criteria being met. The government would have encouraged growth straight away and Heathrow would have won its long-running request for expansion.' Many interested parties will insist it can't happen. Purely pragmatically, just because Heathrow could physically land 15 per cent more planes, doesn't mean there is the terminal and gate space to handle them. Next, the concept of respite is extremely important to many of the people living on the flight paths. On Tuesday morning, for example, a procession of planes started landing on Heathrow's northern runway from 4.30am. The first four aircraft, all coming in from Africa, flew diagonally across south London as far as Woolwich, where they turned sharp left to line up for the final approach to Heathrow. Deptford, Camberwell, Battersea, Fulham … the noise increased as the aircraft descended. Next in line, Brentford and Isleworth – which just happens to be the constituency for Transport Select Committee chair Ruth Cadbury, who is not a fan of Heathrow expansion. The MP and her constituents at least know that at 3pm the noise will cease, as landings are shifted to the southern runway. The most dramatic reduction in aircraft noise at Heathrow happened overnight in October 2003: Concorde stopped flying. The windows of west London stopped rattling at teatime and shortly after 10pm each night. Since 2006, Heathrow says, the area most impacted by aircraft noise has reduced by 41 per cent. The Davies Commission stopped well short of recommending mixed mode. But the airport assessors did say: 'Should the delivery timescale for new runway capacity be towards the longer end of the anticipated spectrum, then the case for enabling mixed mode operations at Heathrow may be stronger ... It is conceivable that this issue may become material as part of a transition strategy to the preferred longer-term option.' Residents beneath the flight path don't want mixed mode. Heathrow does not advocate the practice. But who knows what the pro-growth chancellor, Rachel Reeves, may recommend as a stepping stone to a third runway?
The Independent
28-01-2025
- Business
- The Independent
How ‘mixed mode' could solve Heathrow's capacity crunch long before a third runway
'If you think a third runway is unpopular, try mentioning 'mixed mode' in polite Home Counties company.' That was the private response of one of the 16 transport secretaries this century when I asked whether they had considered allowing both runways at London Heathrow airport to be used for arrivals and departures at the same time. The shorthand for this technique is 'mixed mode'. For a government obsessively focused on growth, it could unlock extra capacity at the UK's biggest hub for very little additional financial cost – but, as the erstwhile minister indicated, huge political cost. At present, Heathrow dedicates one strip of asphalt to landings and the other to take-offs. The only regular use of mixed mode is between 6am and 7am daily, the busiest hour for arrivals into the airport. Planes are allowed to land on both runways. Intuitively, you might imagine that the most efficient way to operate a two-runway airport like Heathrow is to separate arrivals and departures. In fact, the opposite is true: you can extract more capacity if there is a plane coming into land a few seconds after an aircraft ahead has taken off. Heathrow at its peak has a landing every 80 seconds and a take-off every 80 seconds. But across at Gatwick, air-traffic controllers can manage an arrival and a departure in as little as 65 seconds. Mixed mode adds capacity without the need for another runway. When Sir Howard Davies's Airport Commission looked into mixed mode, they concluded: 'The increased operational flexibility could be used to enhance the resilience of the airport's operations.' Monday was messy this week at Heathrow: 36 flights were cancelled, affecting 5,000 passengers and one Qatar Airways A380 'SuperJumbo' diverted to Amsterdam after a missed approach because there was not room in the system to accommodate another go. Such disruption could become much more rare if Heathrow was open to receiving more flights. Of more interest to the airlines – and, by extension, passengers keen on more choice and lower fares – is that the technique could allow up to 60,000 more flights each year. One senior travel industry figure strongly advocates using mixed mode to increase capacity immediately. Paul Charles, chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency, flies through Heathrow at least twice a month. He told me: 'It's embarrassing to see Heathrow held back by the lack of expansion. Airports in most other major cities are growing substantially as their governments focus on growth. The demand to fly from consumers is certainly there. 'I suggest the government apply a two-phase expansion to Heathrow in particular. It could start immediately by allowing greater use of mixed-mode, with aircraft taking off and landing on the same runways, so unlocking greater capacity and flight volumes. 'Then it could agree to a third runway, say from 2035, subject to certain environmental criteria being met. The government would have encouraged growth straight away and Heathrow would have won its long-running request for expansion.' Many interested parties will insist it can't happen. Purely pragmatically, just because Heathrow could physically land 15 per cent more planes, doesn't mean there is the terminal and gate space to handle them. Next, the concept of respite is extremely important to many of the people living on the flight paths. On Tuesday morning, for example, a procession of planes started landing on Heathrow's northern runway from 4.30am. The first four aircraft, all coming in from Africa, flew diagonally across south London as far as Woolwich, where they turned sharp left to line up for the final approach to Heathrow. Deptford, Camberwell, Battersea, Fulham … the noise increased as the aircraft descended. Next in line, Brentford and Isleworth – which just happens to be the constituency for Transport Select Committee chair Ruth Cadbury, who is not a fan of Heathrow expansion. The MP and her constituents at least know that at 3pm the noise will cease, as landings are shifted to the southern runway. The most dramatic reduction in aircraft noise at Heathrow happened overnight in October 2003: Concorde stopped flying. The windows of west London stopped rattling at teatime and shortly after 10pm each night. Since 2006, Heathrow says, the area most impacted by aircraft noise has reduced by 41 per cent. The Davies Commission stopped well short of recommending mixed mode. But the airport assessors did say: 'Should the delivery timescale for new runway capacity be towards the longer end of the anticipated spectrum, then the case for enabling mixed mode operations at Heathrow may be stronger ... It is conceivable that this issue may become material as part of a transition strategy to the preferred longer-term option.' Residents beneath the flight path don't want mixed mode. Heathrow does not advocate the practice. But who knows what the pro-growth chancellor, Rachel Reeves, may recommend as a stepping stone to a third runway?
