A flight attendant helped steer a Heathrow-bound passenger flight to safety after the co-pilot suffered a breakdown in mid-air, investigators have revealed.The flight attendant was temporarily promoted to the cockpit after the captain of the Air Canada service ordered his colleague to be handcuffed and dragged from his seat. The flight attendant, a qualified commercial pilot, came forward after the captain asked the 155 passengers and crew if there were any professional pilots onboard. The unnamed attendant sat in the co-pilot's seat of the Boeing 767-333 jet as the Toronto to Heathrow service was diverted to Ireland's Shannon airport on January 28.The report by the Irish Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) said: "The commander requested that the flight attendant occupy the right-hand...

Campaign for better transport Climate change is such a threat that I believe expanding Heathrow would be a huge step in the wrong direction, especially when there are alternatives. As we showed in a recent report, if the Government made train travel faster, cheaper and more pleasant many short-haul flights wouldn't be needed.The Government says Heathrow needs to grow, but a massive number of people disagree, from local residents blighted by aircraft noise to businesses that want real alternatives to aviation. The Conservatives recently announced that they would scrap the third runway and build a high-speed rail line instead. And recently over 50 rebel Labour MPs signed a parliamentary petition against Heathrow expansion. Has your MP signed yet? The Government will make a decision in the...

Jim Fitzpatrick MP, Labour’s Aviation Minister, responding to Theresa Villiers’ outright rejection of Boris Johnson’s Thames Estuary airport plan, said: “Tory transport policy is now totally incoherent. The Tories can’t get their act together when it comes to airports and keep making headlines on the hoof that unravel under scrutiny. “They opposed Heathrow expansion during the London election campaign. The Thames Estuary airport plan was meant to be their alternative. Now Theresa Villiers has ruled that out - even though Boris Johnson is still lobbying for it. “After yet another of their ideas fails to fly - when will they replace unworkable plans with serious leadership for the long term good of the country.” Theresa Villiers says that...

were both debated in the House of Commons yesterday (while I was flying back from Athens, to Frankfurt not Heathrow) ,and Mr Salter saw fit to share with us the following:Let us consider surface access. I represent a constituency that is some 25 miles from Heathrow airport. I was a member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in the late 1990s, and Committee members regularly caught the 9.05 flight to Belfast. To arrive at Heathrow on time, I would leave my house for what was a 25-minute journey at just before six o’clock in the morning, because that was the only way to beat the gridlock on the M4. Why did I not take public transport? There is a public transport link, I suppose, if I want to travel 60 miles by journeying 40 miles into London and then 20 miles back out again.I too in...

Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon on why Heathrow urgently needs a third runway: “If I had to highlight one statistic that underlines Heathrow’s importance to the United Kingdom’s economy, it would be the statistic that more than 70 per cent. of foreign companies moving to the United Kingdom for the first time choose a location within an...

Norman BakerLiberal Democrat MPs challenged the Government’s support for a third runway at Heathrow in a House of Commons debate yesterday. The party's Shadow Transport Secretary, Norman Baker MP, said that the Climate Change Bill currently passing through Parliament would be undermined by a decision to expand Heathrow.Thanks to pressure from the Liberal Democrats and other campaigners, the Climate Change Bill sets a target for an 80% reduction in carbon emissions. Air travel is the fastest growing source of carbon emissions in the UK at present."We need an 80 per cent target, because the climate change challenge that we face is enormous. But how can it possibly square with the construction of an extra runway at Heathrow?" asked Norman Baker.Norman suggested the possibility of...

The need for a third runway at Heathrow airport is to be debated by MPs, ahead of a final decision due next...

The need for a third runway at Heathrow airport is to be debated by MPs, ahead of a final decision due next...

Can we add the environment to the roll call of casualties of recession? There is a nail-biting tussle going on at the centre of government about the planned expansion of both Heathrow and Stansted airports, and all the signs are that No 10 remains on the wrong side of the argument. Get ready for this: "In these difficult times it is - hrrumph - all the more important to listen to business and - hrrumph - invest for the future."The prime case against another runway at Heathrow, and a major expansion at Stansted, remains stark. If you take climate change seriously then you can't go along with a philosophy of constant and continuing expansion of air travel. While it's true that carbon emissions from air travel are only around 6.3% of the UK's total, this is likely to soar. Listen to this:...

The case for building a third runway at Heathrow has been challenged by figures showing a significant fall in flights this winter as cabinet ministers join a Labour revolt against expanding the airport.The number of flights to and from Heathrow will fall by 1.9% this winter compared with the same period last year, according to figures obtained by the Guardian. The reduction, equivalent to 25 fewer flights a day, was pounced on by anti-expansion campaigners, who said it undermined one of the key arguments for a third runway: that the airport is too congested."It means a third runway is a bit of a gamble for [Heathrow owner] BAA. The government's aviation policy was drawn up in 2003 when aviation was expanding and the economy was booming. We are now in a different world," said John Stewart,...

It looks like Gordon Brown may be forced to adopt another Conservative policy in the face of the latest Labour party rebellion. According to Pippa Crerar of the Evening Standard:"Ministers were said to be secretly fuelling a Commons rebellion against expansion (of Heathrow) with at least five Cabinet ministers, including Environment Secretary Hilary Benn and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband, thought to have concerns."The Tory plan to scrap the third runway at Heathrow was announced during this year's Conservative conference. Shadow transport secretary, Theresa Villiers, told delegates:"This is one of the hardest decisions we've faced as a party and we will not run away from it. "The case for high-speed rail is clear. "It would generate huge economic benefits, it would dramatically...

Lufthansa signalled its intention to take on British Airways at Heathrow yesterday after the German flag carrier said it would acquire bmi, the airport's second largest airline.Sources close to the transaction also indicated that an agreement with Virgin Atlantic was possible after the carrier controlled by Sir Richard Branson made a public plea to be involved in the deal. Lufthansa is expected to take control of bmi, formerly known as British Midland, after bmi chairman Sir Michael Bishop triggered a put option that requires the airline to buy out his majority stake. The German airline said it saw "great potential" in running an enlarged operation out of Heathrow and brushed off concerns that it would damage the competitiveness of its services out of Frankfurt airport .Sir Michael sold a...

Airport owner BAA has paid out more than £7m to airlines after missing service targets at Heathrow and Gatwick - including security queues and availability of seating in terminals.Britain's largest airport group has been warned that it is persistently missing benchmarks for cleanliness, seating and signage at some terminals. The Civil Aviation Authority has ordered BAA to pay back £7.34m in landing fees to airlines at its two biggest airports as a result, including a record charge of £1.65m for April, when both airports missed new security queueing targets that halved the minimum waiting time for passengers.The CAA said that, overall, security queuing times at both airports had improved "markedly" between April and September compared with the same period last year. Under new guidelines...

A man was arrested at Heathrow airport in London today for going ballistic on Mel B, Stephen Belafonte. Mel B and hubby Stephen and their baby arrived at Heathrow and were greeted by a few... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]...

Ardent rail fan Christian Wolmar is perhaps an unlikely critic of the Tory plan to build a High-Speed rail link, HS2, between London and Leeds – instead of a third runway between London Heathrow Airport and the rest of the world. But Christian says “the environmental case for high speed lines is far from proven”, in his Guardian article here. Theresa Villiers, the shadow transport secretary, gave the Heathrow expansion melting pot a good stir at the party conference yesterday by saying a Conservative government would scrap the plan for a 3rd runway that Labour said was a “done deal” according to a Times article last week. The Tory move is seen by some as David Cameron’s “boldest move on the environment”, and Villiers is reported to have said: “This is a seriously...

36 flights a day between Heathrow and Manchester! Madness! That was for me the most stocking part of an article in today’s Guardian about Tory Party transport plans. Factor in the other London airports and the total is much higher (Manchester Airport flight search here - type ‘LON’ as the code to get all London flights). The Tories instead want to get people onto trains. Fine idea. So how’s this for a comparison: what happens in France between Lyon and Paris? Same sort of arrangement - large city in the regions to the capital. Manchester-London is 336km and Lyon-Paris is 466km. Yet there are only 8 daily flights between Lyon and Paris! So what makes the difference? Time - journey time is roughly 2 hours in each case, Lyon-Paris 15 minutes quicker on average Price...

The Conservatives have said they will scrap plans for a third runway at Heathrow airport and build a high-speed rail line...

A group of 100 businesses is calling for a third runway to be built at Heathrow airport "within strict environmental...

UK Plane Liquid Bombers were not up to it: Three men were convicted of conspiracy to murder, but the jury was deadlocked on the central allegation, that terrorists planned to use liquid bombs to destroy aircraft en route from Heathrow to cities in the United States and Canada. Could the bombs have...

…you can make jokes about Heathrow Terminal 5 in adverts in German in the magazine of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Translation: “Sorry, our advertisement is still stuck in Heathrow Terminal 5″. The deckchair seems to make reference to the famous anti-German Carling Black Label advertisement about Germans and British and sunbathing. One of the best ads I’ve seen in a long time....

The Competition Commission has called for BAA, the Spanish company that owns several of Britain's leading airports, including Heathrow and Gatwick, to be broken up. But the answer to Britain's airport woes is not allowing yet more profit-hungry plcs to own and operate our airports, but simply to re-nationalise BAA. Here is my First Post article from last summer on why renationalisation makes sense.Across the political spectrum there is widespread agreement that Britain's airports, with their long queues, lack of seats and tacky, shopping mall atmosphere, are a national disgrace. But the solution is not to break up BAA's monopoly and introduce 'more competition' as some have suggested. The answer is to simply take BAA back into public ownership. Sir Terence Conran, who designed Terminal...

A computer glitch causes major disruption at Heathrow Airport's Terminal 3, BAA...

Earlier this year, the story of Anthony Delaney hit the headlines when he breached an ASBO than banned him from Gatwick Airport where he’d been living for the past few years. It was a sad yet fascinating story.For the last few years, whenever anyone has asked where I work, I’ve tended to flippantly reply “at the airport ... or at least my car lives in the airport car park and I seem to spend a lot of time there too.”But to have no other home, and to have run out of better options than camping in a airport terminal, is quite a different matter.For all my joking, I’ve only had to spend two nights in an airport. Once was about six or seven years ago on a stormy night when a flight arrived so late at Heathrow that the trains and tubes had shut down for the night, there were enormous...

From the Irish Independent (though I can’t find the content via their website) ...A YEAR after its controversial decision to switch Heathrow flights from Shannon to Belfast, Aer Lingus has cornered just 10% of the Belfast/London air market, new figures show ...An Aer Lingus spokesman, however, defended his airline's Belfast/Heathrow performance, saying market share "wasn't the main consideration" and stressing the route's improving performance. Industry figures from the UK's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) show Aer Lingus carried about 87,000 passengers on the Belfast/Heathrow route between January and May ... less than 10pc of the total Belfast to London market, which came in at 888,000 for the five months. Aer Lingus's sole competitor on the Heathrow route, BMI, meanwhile, carried...

A minister indicates the government could go ahead with controversial plans to expand Heathrow Airport....

Jam-packed Heathrow needs a third runway to remain competitive, operator BAA's boss will say....

GEORGE Bush’s visit to Blighty inconvenienced nearly 40,000 fliers. President George W. Bush’s recent stopover in London slowed the travel of nearly 40,000 fliers at Heathrow Airport, according to British Airways CEO Willie Walsh. Heathrow airport operator BAA confirmed today that 32 arrivals and 36 departures were canceled as a result of Bush’s trips into and out of Heathrow on June 15 and 16, The Associated Press writes. Think of the carbon footprint he reduced… Says the Mirror: In John F Kennedy’s day, his mile-high “indiscretions” earned the presidential plane the name Air F*** One. Dubya has turned it into Air Head One. Cleaner Air...

Would the Sheraton advertise vacancies in this way with an anonymous e-mail address? No! The e-mail also came from a Polish e-mail address.Fraud.One out of five.Hello Dear,I am Stephine Johnson the publicity manager of Sheraton Heathrow Hotel London. I am here to announce to you the vacancies in our hotel. Sheraton Heathrow Hotel needs able male and female who can work and live in the hotel. Note: hotel will pay for your air ticket from your country then when you start work the money spent for your air ticket will be deducted from your salary and we will direct you on how to secure your working permit from the immigration Home Office here in London before your arrival. Now if you are interested in this offer simply apply to this address: sheratonheathrow@luckymail.com.com then you will...

May 31st was just the latest in a growing movement of protest against the expansion of heathrow, and of aviation more generally. At the heart of the protest is a coallition of residents groups and climate change campaigners. This may seem like a convenient alliance but not nessicarily one based on common values. However that is not really the case; both groups are strongly opposed to strong...

Pam. There are no flights from Liverpool to Heathrow - unless they are coming in secretly under cover of darkness! Heathrow only connects with eight British cities as opposed to 21 from Amsterdam and 19 from Paris. I always advertise my position as Campaign Director of Future Heathrow and that it is funded and organised by trade unions, business, airlines, BAA (sine April last year-they refused to join at first) and various professional groups. I am proud of that. I like campaigning for Jobs and prosperity but I can't make the media refer to...