"Neil Williams" wrote in message
...
On 2016-09-23 09:59:00 +0000, tim... said:

ISTR it taking about 2:40 at the time, a reduction to 2:10 is hardly
enough to scoop up the market against a 30 minute flight time

It isn't a 30 minute flight time in any useful sense. Realistically it
involves arriving about an hour before the flight

It does now

(as has long been the case),

Not the period I was referring to

you really could just turn up at the airport 20 minuets before and walk
through to the plane (carnet ticket in hand)

and needs to include getting into central London as that is where most
people are going to be going.

Quite a lot aren't

there's an awful lot of tech companies for which the onward journey involved
a taxi to somewhere in the Thames valley.

That means in practice a journey time of around two and a half hours.
Thus the difference between 2:40 and 2:10 is very, very significant, as it
is the change that tips the balance. That between 2:10 and 1:50, say,
would be much less so.

No, as I said before, it's the need to arrive at the airport
significantly earlier, thus increasing total travel time buy plane that's
killed it

That has not changed - most times I've flown recently from a proper
airport (not Stansted) I have waited no longer than about 5 minutes for
security. Stansted is mismanaged, but also is not of any relevance to BA
flights from Manchester to London.

there was a time, quite a long time in fact, when hour long queues at LHR
were not unusual

tim