'Airlines offered Heathrow operator BAA help in clearing snow and ice from the runways but were turned down for health and safety reasons, it emerged today.What a surprise 'Health and Safety' was one of the factors, I would never have guessed.
...
... according to the Daily Telegraph, it seems Lufthansa and another unnamed airline said they asked to help because BAA was not clearing snow fast enough but were told that it contravened health and safety rules.
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The paper reports a Lufthansa spokesman as saying: "The whole process took too long and should have been started earlier. There was not enough manpower available, we were surprised how long it took to get things operational.
"We were not allowed to clean stands for health and safety reasons. BAA gets a lot of money to operate the airport and they refused to do that."
Another airline said BAA was being “jobsworth” about clearing the snow, refusing to allow frustrated airlines to help.'
'SNOW UPDATE: Flight delays to continue until Christmas EveAs reported by Travel Mole this morning...
Lack of preparation is 'nothing short of a scandal', says AITO'
"We have been working closely with our partners to take our operational planning to the next level and will continue to consult with Londoners on the plans.What about the people paying for the event and needing to get to work? Do we get three weeks paid holiday? No we don't so we have to work and we need to travel. There are going to be a lot of very angry Londoners in two years time.
Where Games Lanes are required there will inevitably be some temporary disruption to everyday life, but we must give athletes the best chance to train and compete effectively. That means ensuring they get to their events on time and minimising the time they spend travelling."
"These plans strike an appropriate balance between the demands of hosting this unique event and the day-to-day needs of residents and businesses."I see no evidence for this 'balance'.
"the higher air passenger duty being introduced tomorrow was needed to plug gaps in the national finances.If it was just a pound then maybe I and others would not be so pissed off with this imposition of yet another Labour Stealth Tax. However the truth is that whilst ticket prices for short-haul economy flights to Europe rise from £10 to £11, on longer journeys the economy ticket levy rises by as much as £30 and of course by far more for Premium Economy, Business Class or First Class travel. Next November the Stealth Tax will rise even higher as the short-haul economy-class tax will rise to £12 per ticket. However for premium-class passengers on the longest flights the Stealth Tax will rise from the newly increased figure to as much as £170 per ticket.
He made no attempt to justify the move - which will add £340 to the ticket for a family of four flying long haul - on environmental grounds, the official reason for the tax.
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Addressing journalists in Newcastle, home of the failed bank Northern Rock, Mr Darling said: 'I am quite blunt about it, we need to raise money to pay for some of the things we have done.
'If unemployment goes up there is a cost obviously to the family, there is cost in increased benefits, Northern Rock has cost a lot of money.
What we are doing is putting a pound on to your average ticket, which about three quarters of people travel on.
'And you consider the cost of an air ticket, I don't think a pound is that unreasonable.
'In the North East, we have spent billions on a bank for very good reasons."
"Need a weekend away with your cutie? Planning a fantasy honeymoon? Celebrating an anniversary? Coordinating your destination wedding?Now I need to book a romantic week away with Mrs NotaSheep so I thought I'd try their serice... I was not impressed.
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"Airport operator BAA saw passenger numbers at its London airports fall 10% in the first three months of 2009, as it was hit by the recession."But nowhere in the report, that includes analysis from Robert Peston, is there any mention of the BAA's desperate need for a third runway at Heathrow, a runway whose building is strongly supported by Gordon Brown... Why?
"Aviation expert David Gleave said he would have no concerns about flying on a Boeing 777 as new "operating procedures", such as boosting the engine on approach to landing to keep the heat up, had been implemented.
"All the regulatory authorities are satisfied the new procedures which they will adopt or already have adopted will cure the problem as a temporary measure," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"Then new components will be fitted in time which will remove the need for the new operation procedure."
A Boeing spokeswoman said it had issued a set of guidelines for pilots to prevent long-term build-up of ice and these procedures had been approved by the regulatory bodies."
"the NTSB report said: "While the procedures may reduce the risk of a rollback in one or both engines due to ice blockage, they add complexity to flight crew operations, and the level of risk reduction is not well established.""
"It is good to see that in these difficult times, there are still people willing to take a measured risk. I refer of course to the world's airlines who will continue to fly Boeing 777's despite a known fault that has led to one crash and one near incident.
Our aviation correspondent reports:
The cause of the crash at Heathrow of BA 038 in January 2008 has been identified as fuel starvation or what engineers call "no fuel getting to the engine". Investigators have identified the primary factor leading to this problem, which they has been described by leading technical experts as "a big lump of ice in the fuel tank", which arose from an adverse thermodynamic environment at high altitudes. The effect of the blockage was to limit the flow of fuel to both engines.
With over 750 planes put in service in the last 15 years, that works out at about 2 incidents in 2.8 million flights, or about 10 times the probability of winning the national lottery.
The Boeing 777 is widely used on transatlantic and intercontinental flights. Industry experts say that in the event of a similar mid-flight incident, where ice accumulating in the tanks might be dislodged by turbulence or other activity, then the pilot would be unlikely to be able to manoeuvre the plane in the same manner as Capt. Sully Sullenberger, who recently landed an aircraft in the Hudson River shortly after take off from LaGuardia Airport.
The most likely manoeuvre after a total loss of power, including failure avionics and controls, would be a 35,000 ft "plummet", putting down on the surface of the sea at a velocity above industry norms, causing likely damage to the aircraft fuselage, after which the aircraft would probably "sink like a stone", industry sources commented."
"Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.Yes that is right, US federal agents can take your laptop from you on entry to the US, keep it for as long as they want, copy any data off of it and transcribe that data as a permanent record AND all of that without any suspicion of wrongdoing.
Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement."
"the policies cover "any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form," including hard drives, flash drives, cellphones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover "all papers and other written documentation," including books, pamphlets and "written materials commonly referred to as 'pocket trash' or 'pocket litter.'"So a business visitor carrying the usual laptop, Blackberry, cellphone, couple of USB memory sticks, camera plus memory cards and some CDs could lose all of that equipment and data storage on the whim of a Federal agent, and lose it for an unspecified length of time.
