British Airways are eagerly awaiting delivery of their first Boeing 777-300 model, which has recently been snapped in the final assembly line at Boeing Field, Seattle.

The aircraft is due to enter service on 10th August 2010, with it fully featuring in the new Winter 2010/11 timetable. It will appear on the following routes:

London Heathrow – Chicago O’Hare BA296/297,  20 August-30 October
London Heathrow – Delhi BA256/257, 20 August-30 October
London Heathrow – Dubai BA106/107, 20 August-March 2011
London Heathrow – Mumbai BA138/139, 22 August-March 2011

The long-awaited news of the sale of London Gatwick Airport was announced today. BAA was told to sell the airport, and has now agreed a deal with Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) for £1.5bn. GIP are also the majority owner of London City Airport.

The sale of the airport was ordered to counteract what was described as a lack of competition in the UK airports market, particularly in London where BAA held Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted airports. This should bring much better choice and prices for passengers, with new airlines and routes likely to be announced.

The sale is still to be approved by the European Union – expected to be finalised in December.

For the enthusiast, the sale is likely to spice up the mix of operators flying into Gatwick, although details of this will only come as GIP take over and the new operation takes hold. It is highly unlikely we will see any official spotting locations return, but who knows?

The next new airline to operate the Airbus A380 after Singapore, Emirates and Qantas is Air France, who will start flights on 23 November with their first aircraft, F-HPJA. Another two will follow by Spring 2010.

The airline has announced the routes the aircraft will operate as:
Dubai (1 February 2010)
Johannesburg (early 2010)
New York JFK (23 November 2009)
Tokyo Narita (spring 2010)

All will operate from Paris CDG airport. Interestingly, the route to Dubai will start 15 days before Emirates start using A380s on their Dubai – Paris route.

The aircraft will visit Paris Orly on 11 November to test the airport as a diversion field from CDG.

The new high-speed train link from Amsterdam Schiphol is due to open in September. This will run directly from the terminal to Antwerp, Breda, Brussels and Rotterdam.

Trains running on the route travel at 250km/h 16 times a day. This makes travel around the Netherlands and Benelux region much faster.

I’ve been an avid fan of Johnny Jet’s weekly newsletter for quite a few years now. It always makes a fascinating read as he travels week-by-week around the globe, taking up frequent flier deals with airlines and hotels, and often trying out new services, routes and aircraft.

Whilst his reports are geared around travel, and the places he sees around the world, I thought I’d give it a mention here because he travels almost exclusively by air. Therefore in each of his weekly newsletters, you get an account of at least two airports, and an airline.

Whilst this doesn’t help you much with spotting aircraft, it will surely be useful in giving you an overview of the various airports he visits (he covers everything from how modern the terminal is, to the price of a bottle of water). i know a lot of you travel by air to spot at different airports.

He runs a large website known as Johnnyjet.com, and has his free newsletter which you can sign up to. I really recommend it!