British Airways will receive its first two Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft on 26th and 27th June.

The airline’s first Airbus A380 will be delivered on 4th July.

Both types are expected to be delivered direct to London Heathrow airport, so if you’re around on those days make sure you keep a camera handy.

It is expected that 787 training will take place at Manston Airport, with crew training flights likely operating to Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle, and Stockholm Arlanda.

Crew familiarisation on the A380 will take place on flights to Frankfurt and possibly other European trunk routes. I’ll post any updates on here as soon as I find out more.

London Heathrow’s new Terminal 2 is due to open on 4th June, 2014, it has been announced.

The £2.5 billion structure has been taking shape since the old terminal was demolished in 2009.

The new Terminal 2 will be home to Star Alliance at Heathrow, and the first flight to use the facility is scheduled to be United Airlines’ 05:55 arrival from Chicago on the day of opening. Other airlines to use it include Aer Lingus, Germanwings, and Virgin Atlantic Little Red.

Six months of tests are due to take place to ensure the facility is up to the standard of Terminal 5, which is the airport’s most recent addition.

Virgin Atlantic’s new UK domestic arm, Little Red, begins flying today with the launch of its London Heathrow to Manchester flights.

The airline will also introduce flights from Heathrow to Aberdeen and Edinburgh on 9th and 5th April respectively.

The airline is using Airbus A320 aircraft operated in full livery (as seen here, (c) Malcolm Nason) with Aer Lingus crews. The first aircraft is EI-DEO

If you’re out and about with your camera over the next few days and catch a shot of the Virgin Little Red A320, please share it on our Facebook page or comment below!

Dubai has taken second place in the list of busiest international airports – that is, the amount of international traffic that is handled.

The airport is now ahead of Paris Charles de Gaulle and Hong Kong airports, which previously handled more international traffic. Dubai now has its sights firmly on top position as it approaches London Heathrow, which has occupied top slot for many years but is now at full capacity. Heathrow’s options have been severely hampered by the UK government declining additional runways at the airport.

Dubai Airport handled 10,640,120 passengers in the first two months of this year, a rise of 13% over the same period last year. It hopes to gain top spot by 2015. It recently opened the new Concourse A, which is developed to handle up to 20 Airbus A380 superjumbos at once.

British Airways have made the first flights on their new Airbus A380 aircraft available to book.

The aircraft are due to enter service in October, and will operate to both Hong Kong and Los Angeles on selective flights from London Heathrow.

The tentative dates of entry to service, which can be booked now (and are subject to change) are:

LHR-Los Angeles-LHR
15 October, BA269, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday
18 October, BA283, Monday, Friday
27 October, BA269, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday

LHR-Hong Kong-LHR
15/16 November, BA25, Monday-Sunday

Here’s a video promoting the new aircraft in the fleet:

Virgin Atlantic’s forthcoming UK domestic services will be known as ‘Little Red’, it has been announced.

Services will commence from London Heathrow to Manchester (31st March), Edinburgh (6th April), and Aberdeen (9th April), with up to 26 daily departures once all services are under way.

After successfully bidding to the European Commission for the Heathrow slots made available after British Airway’s parent company IAG took over bmi, the airline that flies in the face of ordinary is restoring competition on these three routes which have faced a monopoly since that takeover. Slots made available by IAG will be used to fly to Scotland from 5^th April and Virgin Atlantic has utilised its own slots to add the Manchester service from 31^st March.

Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Atlantic founder and president, said: “Virgin Atlantic has been on an incredible journey since we started with a single plane 29 years ago. Little Red represents the next step on that journey as we go head to head with British Airways to provide domestic flights that deliver Virgin Atlantic’s rock and roll spirit as well as real value for money.

Little Red will operate with four Airbus A320 aircraft on lease from Aer Lingus, but painted in Virgin Atlantic colours.

Virgin Atlantic has announced it is to use Aer Lingus as a source of aircraft and crew for its upcoming UK domestic flight schedule.

The airline will use four Airbus A320s operated by the Irish airline to provide 24 daily flights in and out of London Heathrow airport. The slots for these flights were acquired following the takeover of bmi British Midland by IAG’s British Airways earlier this year.

Flights will operate from Heathrow’s Terminal 1 to Aberdeen (3x daily), Edinburgh (6x daily), and Manchester (3x daily), starting on 31 March, 2013.

The deal with Aer Lingus will initially last three years, and there has been no indication whether Virgin aims to eventually source its own aircraft, or add more destinations to its domestic network.

Qatar Airways has confirmed the date its new Boeing 787 Dreamliners will begin serving London Heathrow.

A daily flight will be operated from Doha to Heathrow from 13th December, 2013. It arrives at Heathrow at 1105, and departs at 1505.

Qatar are currently flying their aircraft, which was delivered recently, on short flights to Dubai and Kuwait to aid in crew familiarisation. London will be the first long haul destination the type flies on.

To keep up to date with the routes airlines will be flying their 787 Dreamliners on, check out the Boeing 787 Routes page, which is updated regularly!

Major news for Virgin Atlantic and UK domestic travellers has just been announced.

The airline has won all of the slots it bid for at London Heathrow, following the merger of bmi British Midland into the IAG group earlier this year.

The merger meant that British Airways (owned by IAG) had to surrender a lot of bmi’s slots at the airport so as to avoid creating a monopoly at Heathrow. Various airlines naturally bid for them, however it is Virgin Atlantic who has secured these slots and plans to use them to offer domestic flights within the UK.

Virgin had already announced it was to introduce 3x daily flights between Manchester and London Heathrow from March 2013, using Airbus A319 aircraft, and going head-to-head with British Airways, who already operate on the route.

However, with the addition of these slots, Virgin plans to link Heathrow with Aberdeen and Edinburgh also. It has also said it plans to significantly increase its domestic offerings from next year.

For the London Heathrow spotters out there, here are a few changes to look out for over the next few months:

AeroMexico is to begin a Boeing 767-300 service from Mexico City. It will be a 3x weekly service (Mon, Thu, Sat) from 15 December.

Malaysia Airlines will now use the Airbus A380 on all of its scheduled services to/from Kuala Lumpur, replacing the Boeing 777.

LOT Polish Airlines will operate the Boeing 787 on services to/from Warsaw on 21, 22, 29, 30, 31 December, and 1, 2 January.

United Airlines will operate a daily Boeing 787 flight from 4 February – 28 March 2013.