Thirteen months later, BA touts success of T5
When Terminal 5 opened at Heathrow Airport in London, it was a nightmare for British Airways. Now, thirteen months later, BA officials say that “the facility is more than living up to its original promise.”
“T5 has made things less complex. Our punctuality has improved–we’ve beaten our own target,” BA Head of Network Operations Peter Lynam told ATW’s Airports Today in London in late April. Some 55% of the estimated 255 daily flights out of T5 are able to leave slightly ahead of scheduled departure time, he said. Around 24.5 million passengers have used T5 since it opened.
Country music mecca opens the country’s first private airport
Starting next week, AirTran and Sun Country will begin bringing paying passengers to Branson, Missouri, the mecca for country music lovers.
They’ll land at the nation’s first commercial airport built and operated as a private, for-profit business for which federal, state and local taxpayers paid nothing.
But unpretentious little Branson Airport could have an outsize effect if it works: It could turn what now is a mostly regional tourist spot with only 7,500 year-round residents into a national destination for vacationers. And it could spur other U.S. cities to consider operating their airports privately, a concept widespread in Europe and Latin America and catching on in Asia.
easyJet wants to get into the wedding business
Airlines are desperate with making money any way they can. EasyJet is “planning to introduce in-flight weddings on their planes, allowing couples to tie the knot at 30,000 feet.”
There is one minor issue they’ll need to work on first — UK law states that the place of marriage has to be a legal building, and that the building has to be permanent and “not moving.” Still, if they are able to work out the legal problems, they may be onto the next big aviation money maker.
