Member Info for big-blue

That point about the mass for landing - you see in the past the grand cure all schemes never ot past the drunken pub discussion because there are so many problems both obvious and unforseen.

The unintended consequence of bio fuel is more rainforest chopped down to make room for palm oil crops. The ocean floor is going to have to be raked in order to get the metals for all the batteries. This will also be true on land where large areas of virgin land will have to be open cast mined to get metals like Lithium.

Simple calculations using the energy from calorific value from fossil fuel and the energy from batteries all show major deficiencies - what it the range of an electric car? It sounds like a good idea converting everything to electric but at the most elementary level there are very significant problems. Where are you going to moor all those container ships whilst they are charging up? Where is the power source to provide the charge?

And as for the climate change being a proven done and dusted phenomena, oh if only. There are so many problems with so much that is claimed, or rather estimated and predicted, that as the cost of 'doing something about it' becomes ever greater, more and more questions about the claims crop up. Certainly when you hear the news you are presented with a one way headlong narrative which feckless politicians find themselves locked into which is then part of the feedback loop qualifying itself. Nothing I can do to stop the wrecking of our pretty little planet in the name of saving it. But one thing is for sure. There are very big questions being hidden away and they will emerge as the expense cripples societies.

One fact of life going forward. The cost of climate change policies will become as big an everyday subject as Covid has been. We are moving past a few hundred extra quid on the average household energy bill. For retirement portfolios, holding items such as IAG maybe a bad choice. Indeed to is very difficult to tell how successful the restrictions and taxes will be in deleting certain industries and what collateral damage will be done over the coming years on other industries and investment return. If the current hysteria continues and the interventions into existing business models and technologies continue unabated then the negative effects of pandemic lockdowns will look small in comparison. And there is no possibility of a climate change hysteria vaccine. It needs open rational truthful debate with a full acceptance of whatever is revealed. Show me the verified proof of climate change and I will accept that.

herdy, I understand the environmental lobby were looking to introduce a scheme where your travel movements were monitored through passports and you would be billed at passport control a tax and expect to present your credit card before being allowed in to a country. They also wanted the tax to be variable literally based on the weather! If the so called renewables had been supplemented with gas powered generation for example, then a carbon off sett was to be immediately applied. The worrying thing is, mad schemes like this that once were safely on the fringe and would never get on the main agenda of any government are now on the agenda and being implemented.

Certainly in years to come all of us will be heavily taxed, perhaps multiplying the cost of a ticket 3 or 4 times, under the banner of solving climate change. International travel will revert to being something exclusive for the rich and climate change activists going to the hundreds of conferences and protests [paid for out of the tax of course].

At some point the questions over the truth and integrity of the data used to claim their is any climate change will end up being openly challenged and the extent of the fraud and the lie will become known. The only variable is just how far can the taxing and restriction on freedoms go before the questions can no longer be hidden?

Here's a question for the minister [profiteering and lab rats related]

" If the destination country does not require proof of a negative covid test or vaccination certificate, and the traveller does not have either, will the traveller be prevented from travelling?"

I foresee some complicated dilemmas here, Greece happy to welcome you without any test requirements, UK government basing their passport which one presumes is equally applicable on the return leg on having test results. Does that mean travelling to Greece outbound will be dependant on the permission of our government rather than the Greek government? And if i don't have an outbound test, will I be barred from entering the UK because of an incomplete passport.

Is an outbound test required in all situations if there hasn't been a vaccination and does that include children?

The big news reveal today, the covid passport. It will use the NHS app. And the market reaction? Notice that? I don't think anybody is going to get excited about that and the biggest and most important detail for the return to travel as I have stated from the very start is what happens on the return leg. Currently the proposals are a big red flag no. The PCR must be removed and effective fast track VIP channels must be very obvious and available for IAG share price spike.

The return leg is the key. When that is announced as no PCR on green corridors and US is a green corridor then IAG will shoot past the 250 mark.

30 years+. Wow! That is a very long time in the future. Oh to be so young as to even think that is what you have to look forward too! Good luck to you on that one. You do know by then we will all be flying around in our centrally controlled electric flying cars and there will be no need for IAGs ?

I think people are getting a little confused here. BA leaving Heathrow, I suggested Gatwick (London not Paris) is a potential option if Heathrow continue to price themselves out of the market.

As far as the hub is concerned, in the context as the doorway for long haul, other hubs fed from smaller airports are taking London's place and this has been the warning for many years. Instead of short flights from EU and UK cities into Heathrow to connect with the long haul, it will and in fact already is, the other way round where you will be taking a short flight to Paris first and then onwards on long haul. BA planes will probably be rebranded in some sort of code share or, god forbid, the EU finally forces the EU national flag on all tail fins of aircraft owned by companies within the EU. And for those who remember BA's dalliance with tail fin decorations you may note that such a move to remove flags and identities off tail fins is an actual policy discussion within the EU - exactly like the imposition of the EU flag on all the numberplates of all the vehicles across the then union [you were all supposed to have absorbed the flag as a fact of life, a part of the furniture and fully prepared to accept the the united sates of Europe without question].

There are many permutations that some will look to take advantage of as lockdowns end and Heathrow trying to raise billions in landing fees is the kind of thing that tips the scales dramatically in one direction and new policies suddenly appear that previously would have been laughed off a bulletin board as a complete nonsense, like the idea of putting the EU flag on every numberplate to assimilate people into imprinting it on their mind.

As it is, the rise in fees is small, but the other hubs are growing, the EU is extremely aggressive in wanting to 'win' the post Brexit war [absolutely at any cost] and IAG is registered within the EU and therefore constantly at risk of effective sequestration by the commission and rebranded for Europe.

I should point out too, given the level of due diligence the iis take before putting their millions at a time into companies like IAG, if there was the slightest hint of a problem this sp would not even be half of the current level, not even a quarter.

Fontenoy - so you think if IAG got close to not being solvent they would not be able to raise any money from the market to remain solvent? On this one I can safely say you are spectacularly wrong! IAG will be able to raise money from the market for some time to come if it actually had to, to see out the travel restrictions. As it happens it has enough cash in the bank to see it through to next year.

"Paris, Berlin and Frankfurt aren't much good if you're going to London though...."

Go and look up what a 'hub' is and how they work!

Not sure that the NHS app is the best system to choose for the covid passport. There is a reason why so few used the app and also totally ignored the scanning of bar codes for every shop they entered. The tracking! Many people do not like the idea that they are tracked anywhere. People like to keep a private profile and there is low trust levels as to what the tracking data has and could be used for. If using the app is believed to be a clever clever way of getting people to use it who otherwise have avoided it, it will fail. People who do not want to be tracked, will not download it - assuming they have a phone that could download it - and will rather shrug shoulders and simply not travel. If there is a paper back up system, then get yours early as I predict most will go for the paper based system, the system will be quickly overloaded and you might not be able to get your paper work in order for last minute jaunts. Looks like 'freedom' to travel is really going to focus on pre-planned corralled package style and not hearing about a festival in Madrid one day and being on a plane to see it two days later.

With Heathrow trying to bump up the fees again I think it may just price itself out of the market. I am sure I saw something about how an airline could subsidise the Gatwick Express train against Gatwick landing fees making Gatwick cheaper than Heathrow. Heathrow has become an issue as a hub thanks to the prevarication over the third runway and the likes of Paris have taken over. The big problem for Paris is, of course, trade unions and the myriad wild cat strikes in the aviation sector notably air traffic control. If Heathrow thinks it will forever keep one up on Paris because of that then it will be in for a shock. Frankfurt and the new Berlin airport are hot on the heels and Schipol is doing a pretty good job as a hub too. It will only take one stroke of the protectionist commission pen to write out Heathrow as a hub of any notable size. Be warned Heathrow!

but???

I have been blasted, castrated, hung-drawn and quartered, spiked, roasted and poked in the eye for daring to say that the return to 'normal' free flying would happen - ever!

Well, maybe I might not be as far off the mark as some of you pessimists think. Getting on an aeroplane to visit somewhere had become no more of a ceremony than popping into town to pop into a shop or grab a coffee. Many travellers, playing the game, didn't even bother with the tonne of luggage and managed with small shoulder bag. Actually cheaper to buy new clothes in some far east destinations than pay for the air cargo!!!! And as for the invention of the launderette. What will they think of next? I have a few changes of sunny clothes in a couple of draws in friends houses around the med and Canaries. My own draw or box in the storage cupboard.

This is why I am confident people will return to travel just as they did before - assuming of course it is truly free travel without big delays due to testing queues and profiteering on charging for testing. If that is the future, then people will simply not bother. Travellers can be fickle.

Meanwhile there is a small difference between Easy and IAG today slightly out of sync. Fingers crossed my master plan to rule the Universe from a wicker chair is coming to pass.... see you all in Rome for an ice cream at the Trevi fountain in a month or so - or maybe a pastel de nata at Confeitaria Nacional?

Jet 2, like others, are trying to leverage the government. You can bet affected customers will be directed to lobby their MP to put upward pressure on ministers. BA and Virgin may also join in soon because the opening up of travel seems to be being used as some sort of laboratory experiment with the PCR test rather than a practical opening up allowing a return to free travel. I can understand the unique and wonderful mass research opportunity the scientific arm of the input want. But this is real world stuff and restricts basic freedoms. The PCR test will have to be put to one side and only used at random or to confirm a faster and cheaper test an the PCR will have to be no charge. If the PCR is insisted on, there will be a very small return to travel. Cost, time, inconvenience, imposition - all will be a deterrent. This is the big danger for the sp, if the return leg procedure is not changed, the price will crash, you could see 1/3 or more wiped out.

Easy jet walked up to a 135 peak, but the way IAG has been following the rises and falls in the intraday stopped me cashing in Easy J. I want them out of sync and I do not want to be second guessing what looked like trading algorithms oscillating between two set points. RR getting closer to me cashing in at least break even to pour into IAG. I need good positive Easy J rumours, a bad run at IAG and then I'll be all in IAG ready for the spike when US routes open. I note the EU is trying to get ahead on that one with El Presidente saying the yanks are welcome to come and holiday [bring lots of money]. Will the yanks go to Europe with its vaccination programme, or to the UK and Ireland? mmmm tough one that.

There's a story line in Family Guy where Peter is made an executive and has to fly all over the place. All he appears to be doing is delivering a roll of paper and then enjoys the delights of sight seeing and being treated as an important person.

The story line is of course a bit of a joke on all those dispatched on freebies and junkets all over the planet on the pretence they are of some worth in doing so. The need to make people feel important to keep them on board is very difficult to maintain when they are stuck working from home or in some provincial office. The value of those junkets are much greater in the overall picture than the cost of a business seat or two. Being given a 'turn left' ticket has a powerful effect in cementing loyalty and a sense of being recognised and part of the inner team - security. Those business seats will be full for a good few years to come, even after planes are fully powered with exploding batteries. Then, it'll be about who you want to lose in an unfortunate accident :)

etank, as long as they are with BA in business class, we're good.

Within Europe, I can well imagine there will be reduction so of various business flights, not least because the green party over there has much more power and will embargo and restrict internal flights as they have started to do already pushing people onto trains instead - a policy that will only grow and grow. Anyway, I have acknowledged there will be some opportunities to not need to travel, but there are just as many existing opportunities and there may be a need for more.

One intercepted video conference with important information being posted on Youtube, and a lot of those video conferences will be ditched and it will be a return to face to face. I have heard about some of the video conference sessions over lockdown being hacked and intruders disrupting meetings already.

Fugazil, it takes a 'certain' mindset to deliberately recast a musing post for discussion and opinion as an actual verbatim request. Instead of making fun of the 'said' poster, you have actually succeeded in making a bit of a clown of yourself.

Dilema, my easy jet stratergy is working, but do I wait for more formal EU holiday news pushing easy further before bailing and going all in IAG with the risk that the US and lh route news comes first? Or do I take the mark up now with easy and potentially have a much longer wait for US route news and miss out on some more easy rise?

Decisions, decisions........ huh, who would be a private investor lol? To much stress. Now where did I put that decision 8 ball?