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A bizarre week for British aviation.
While Heathrow's new Terminal 5 goes into meltdown, Flybe are accused of virtually raping the environment by purposely running flights to avoid a fine from Norwich Airport.
Firstly Heathrow. Despite the fact that T5 has been planned for decades and British Airways (still "The World's Favourite Airline"?...) have been in the terminal for the past 6 months, it's been nothing short of a disaster for passengers from day one.
Literally thousands of pieces of luggage are still "in the system", separated from their owners. Dozens of flights were cancelled outright while many more were severely delayed.
Next Flybe. They were actually going to hire actors to fill seats on the Norwich to Dublin run to avoid paying a £280,000 penalty. WTF? What environment?....
UPDATE: I just read Will Hutton's excellent piece on the Heathrow fiasco in the Guardian. Sums it up nicely. The introduction:
Britain does fiascos well and by any measure, the opening of BA's £4.3bn Terminal 5 was a corker. The plunge from the pomp of the official opening by the Queen on 14 March to BA chief executive Willy Walsh finding his job on the line after more than 200 cancelled flights has been dramatic. This is no longer about 'teething problems', it raises fundamental questions about the private sector's capabilities, values and priorities.
Bob Crow (may his testicles shrivel and fall off) has just announced another Tube strike, this one to last for four days. The BBC has the details here and more from Annie Mole here.
It's set for April 6th to 9th, but based on previous strikes I can see disruption to the network spilling over into the 10th as the strike won't end until 1830 on the 9th. Bastards. Aaaargh.
(Warning: parochial posting, containing public transport-related ranting).
And just how drunk are they? Seriously. First they shut down the East London Line. Fine, I can see the logic. They're going to upgrade it and link to other (albeit shitty) locations. Then they cancel the replacement bus service, which didn't cross the river in any case. You'll be familiar with this, I have ranted on this topic previously.
This meant more use of the DLR to get from A to B. Not a big deal. However, then I hear TfL are closing the Tower Hill DLR station until next year - another local transport inconvenience. Then, this afternoon I read that TfL are closing the interchange between the one remaining central DLR station and the rest of the tube.
That's right, no interchange between Bank and Monument stations. Until August of next year. Over a year. Non-London readers won't think this much of an issue, until you think about just how may thousands and thousands of people use this major interchange daily. It will be pandemonium. Are they really setting out to make it difficult to travel into central London from East London and the Docklands?
The ever-reliable Annie Mole has the details on her London Underground Tube blog. And for what it's worth, here's TfL's explanation. Their suggestions for alternate interchanges for passengers are priceless.
I really wonder sometimes. Trained chimps could run London's public transport system better sometimes.
Bah!!
Just in case that last video didn't give you the chills, check out this one - taken from the flight deck on board a plane landing at the same airport.
Now you can see what I mean about the runway and the river. A steady hand required...
...reminded me of this video clip recorded last month. This is a jet trying to land at London City Airport. Ouch.
I'm flying to Paris from here on Wednesday... hope the weather calms down before then...
For those of you unfamiliar with City, it's based in London's docklands and the runway is surrounded by the River Thames on three sides.
So, one false move and....splash. On a positive note, based on how much I've been eating lately, I could use myself as a flotation device. :-)
Aside from all the fun I've been having digging up old videos on YouTube (see below), I've had a pretty busy week. But it was a pretty good one too.
- I went to see "Charlie Wilson's War" and loved every minute of it. I can honestly say it's the first time I've actually enjoyed a Tom Hanks performance (does that make me a bad person?). All I can say is: go and see this film.
- Things are looking up on the career front. But if I told you any more, I'd have to kill you. Work wasn't too bad at all - I didn't actually murder anyone with my bare hands and didn't feel the need to turn to a crate of beer to forget. In short, a success.
- It's now 18 days into my new healthier me (titter ye not) and I still had any alcohol or junk food. And you know what? I'm not missing either. Actually no, that's not true. I walked past a KFC yesterday and was almost bowled over by the delicious aroma of... well, fried chicken. But I was strong. I walked on. Yay me.
- The Apple keynote was great. For me. No new iPhone to tempt me. No super duper software package I "simply had to have". I just paid $20 for an update for my iPod Touch to get a mail application and other assorted goodies. Dear God, am I over Apple?
- However, I'm already missing the East London Line, which closed just before Christmas. It means I have to get a bus to get to the next nearest station. Which is not in itself a problem. The fact that everyone else in Wapping has the same brilliant plan is the problem. Yes, there is a replacement bus service. But as I've already pointed out, it doesn't cross the river, making it pretty useless. Makes me wonder who does the planning at Transport for London. Yeah, that's a good one... planning.
A bit of a parochial post this, so please bear with me. Many of the Londoners on Vox will be aware that the East London Line is shutting down next month for a couple of years.
This is facilitate an upgrade to the line and create links to the north and south of the present line. The details are presented by TFL here. In the interim, there will be a replacement bus service. All well and good.
Except it's not all well and good.
The planned replacement bus service is far from an adequate replacement. For one thing, unlike the present tube line, it won't cross the river. So for those of us on the north side of the river, it won't connect to the Jubilee Line at Canada Water, a connection that thousands use each day to get to work. Handy that. It will also have a lower frequency service during the day and end earlier in the evening.
Now I've experienced "replacement" services while the East London Line was down before. And the scramble for each bus can only be described as something akin to the last US chopper leaving Hanoi. Talk about survival of the fittest.
If I'm going to pay TfL an exorbitant amount each month for an East London Line, I think the least I can expect is that its replacement service matches it.
So, if like me you find this situation a little sub-optimal, you can make your displeasure known via a petition on the Government website of the same name. Go to http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Wappingtube and let them know how you feel.
The BBC is reporting that a funding agreement has finally been put in place which gives the go-ahead for the Crossrail project in London.
The City of London Corporation has agreed to meet a funding gap holding back London's £16bn Crossrail.
The authority voted to support "a financial contribution" to the project, which had stalled over a shortfall of up to £400m.
Corporation sources told BBC London they were confident the project's last hurdle had now been overcome.
The planned rail link would connect Maidenhead in the west to Essex, through the centre of the capital.
The corporation's vote follows the government's signal it would provide cash, believed to cover a third of the overall costs, for Crossrail.
'Construction in 2010'
The rest of the money would be made up from borrowing against future fares income, and a levy on London business rates.
The scheme had stalled over the cash shortage, with Prime Minister Gordon Brown urging the City of London to make a "significant contribution".
The City of London Corporation said it had agreed further funding but would not comment on whether that bridged the financial gap in full.
"At a special meeting held this afternoon at the Guildhall, the City of London's Court of Common Council voted, after lengthy discussion, to support a financial contribution to Crossrail," it said in a statement.
Mayor of London Ken Livingstone welcomed the corporation's decision to contribute towards funding Crossrail.
He said: "It reflects the benefits it will bring to the City of London and indeed to London as a whole - other London businesses such as the Canary Wharf Group and BAA have also contributed, as well as Transport for London.
"I hope it will now be possible to agree a final overall funding package for Crossrail and for a positive announcement to be made."
Crossrail was first proposed in the 1980s but supporters have had difficulty in securing the funding. As well as adding capacity to London's overcrowded tube network, it would link the capital with its airports.
If the project gets the final go-ahead, construction would begin in 2010 with trains up and running by 2015.
This has been going on for what seems like an eternity, but with BAA and the City of London making financial contributions in addition to government spending, it looks like this cross-London rail route will finally become a reality.
For those of you outside London or who aren't all that excited by public transport news, here's a summary of the project. There's also a Wikipedia entry on the project here. And for those interested parties, there's a series of route maps hosted here.
Basically, it would mean the implementation of a cross-London rail route allowing you to travel from (for example) Canary Wharf to Heathrow Airport without changing trains. It obviously extends much farther east and west than these two point, but I'm guessing Heathrow and the docklands will be of prime interest to business travelers. And me. The only downside to this news is that it won't be ready in time for the 2012 Olympics.
Mind you, I'm wondering if the Olympics will be ready by 2012...
