Welcome to BA clubs

Heathrow Airport has had a fascinating yet turbulent year, often appearing in the press and media, usually for reasons related to difficult conditions for travellers. Here's a short summary of 2006:

January

We welcomed Air Sahara (VT-SDL B763 on the 6th).

March

It's goodbye to Air Baltic, who transferred operations to LGW. YL-BBD B735 was on the final service, on the 25th.

April

We said hello to Hemus Air, who bizarrely chose to use another operators' aircraft on their inaugural service. (LZ-MDT A320 of VIA on the 14th). The first of their own fleet to visit was 146 LZ-HBB on the 19th. We also got a first type visit this month, which was Falcon 900DX HB-JSW (7th).

May

The big news this month was the arrival of the first A380 to visit the UK (F-WWDD on the 18th). This was a big event in more ways than one, and it drew spectators and media to Heathrow in numbers that hadn't been seen since 24th Oct 2003.

Less noteworthy were 3 other first type visits, these being SP-LIA E175 (4th), SE-RFH C680 (14th), and our first C-130J in the shape of ZH884 (3rd). We also bade farewell to short lived Air Sahara, VT-SDL making its final appearance on the 12th.

June

Jet Airways introduced A330 operations (supplementing their A340s), with VT-JWD A332 on the 13th.

July

Etihad introduced their A340 with A6-EHA on the 1st. This inaugurated the first regular operation of the A340-500 into LHR.

Sadly, after continous operations covering a number of decades, we said goodbye to Varig. PP-VTP MD11 on the 30th was the final aircraft to visit.

On the plus side, we welcomed back Sudan Air, after a few years of absence, with ST-ATB A300 on the 15th.

August

Lots of media attention this month, but for all the wrong reasons. A heightened terror threat level meant a sudden change in security and a temporary ban on hand luggage was implemented. The consequent mayhem in the terminals meant that operations on the 10th were severely hampered. Heathrow managed 692 movements on this day, roughly half the usual level. It took a number of fraught days before volumes returned to normal.

On a more positive note, we welcomed another new operator, Air Ukraine International (UR-GAO B734 on the 5th inaugurating the weekly service).

A minor highlight also, was the first visit for an extremely long time of a USAF KC-135. 63-8033 on the 11th was almost certainly the first 'R' CFM56 powered) model ever to visit.

September

Qatar Airways introduced A340-600 equipment. A7-AGA on the 21st was the first to operate.

October

An interesting month, the season change bringing more newcomers than we are accustomed to. The winter schedule on the 29th brought us two more new operators, with TAM of Brasil and Transaero of Russia. PT-MVF A332 and EI-DDK B734 were the respective first visitors.
We also had the pleasure of B777 equipment from Air New Zealand for the very first time. ZK-OKA on the 29th was the first to visit.

This month's 'negative' though was the loss of Malev, who like Varig had been a fixture at LHR for very many years. HA-LOH B738 night stopping on the 28th was the final Malev scheduled flight here, with all subsequent London services being operated to Gatwick.

Another type first visit this month was our first Ce525B CJ3, and this was D-CTEC (25th).

November

Newspaper headlines at Heathrow again, with the most unlikely story of the year, which was the supposed contamination of 3 BA B767s by radiation.

Leaving that nonsense aside, this was actually the best month of the year for enthusiasts, with no less than 76 first time visitors, with only one day (the 14th) not producing anything new.

December

A difficult end to the year for the weary air traveller, with the worst period of dense fog to hit LHR for several years. Total movements on the 20th were 942, with 932 on the 21st and just 1,006 on the 22nd. When you consider the average is over 1,300, then the effects of the ATC
imposed reduced flow rates (for good safety reasons) over these 3 days begins to show that Heathrow runs at 'full tilt' most of the time and it doesn't take much to create chaos for thousands of people. A baggage belt failure was also a factor in creating a lost baggage mountain, which took weeks to resolve.

Yet another new operator commenced services this month, with Azerbaijan A/L flying once weekly (4K-AZ43 B757 on the 16th was the first to operate).

Finally, it's worth mentioning that in 2006, LHR did not see any ATR aircraft visit, nor Merlin/Metro types, nor even any Learjet 55s.

Here are some general movement figures and statistics, some of which are fairly mind boggling.

Heathrow's busiest day this year was 20th Jun, with 689 arrivals and 687 departures (1,376 movements). Christmas day excepted, I've already mentioned the quietest day (10th Aug). The overall average is 653 arrivals and 653 departures (1,306 movements) per day.

With respect to runway operations, westerlies (27's) generally prevail. The number of days when 09's were in use for all or most of the time was 107.

Here are a few figures showing the most prolific users of Heathrow

There were 476,949 movements in 2006

The figs in parenthesis are total movements (arrs & deps)

Top operators:

40% (193,693) BA (excludes GB & BMED)
11% ( 53,208) bmi
4% ( 20,590) Lufthansa
3% ( 14,871) Aer Lingus
3% ( 14,309) Virgin Atlantic
3% ( 13,726) SAS/SAS Braathens
2% ( 10,812) American
2% ( 10,777) Iberia
2% ( 9,244) KLM
2% ( 8,280) Air France
2% ( 7,861) United
2% ( 7,851) Air Canada
2% ( 7,535) Alitalia

So, given that each day sees about 650 arrivals (some of which are the same aircraft returning to operate another sector, I wonder how many different aircraft in total visited Heathrow in 2006?
The answer to that question is 3,642 !

Your next question might well be, which specific aircraft are the most prolific visitors?. Given that BA are the dominant operator, I expect you to be as surprised as I was to discover that the first BA aircraft is 17th in the list! (G-EUPO A319).

The 'top' number was G-DBCB A319 of bmi, which landed 1,128 times. bmi A319s occupy the next 5 positions also, and the next 10 are bmi A320s and A321s. In fact, BA and bmi Airbuses occupy the top 86 positions.
87th is BA B757 G-BPEC, and the first foreign aircraft is EI-CPF A321 at number 112 in the charts. The first non G-/EI- number is A330 5B-DBS, at position 121 with 347 arrivals.

A total of 697 aircraft (19%) of the 3,641, only made a solitary visit, and 275 aircraft (7%) only came in twice. I was surprised at how high these numbers were.

The top ten visit count by 'type' looks like this

1. A320 51,765
2. A319 41,820
3. A321 26,905
4. B744 24,600
5. B772 21,223
6. B763 11,367
7. B752 10,347
8. A343 6,637 (not including 47 A342 moves)
9. A332 4,233 (not including 1,804 A333 moves)
10. A346 4,201

There were 15 aircraft types that made 1 visit only, which were:
A380, Astra, Be1900, Be58, BN2P, Ce310, Ce425, DC-8, DHC8, IL76, JS32, SN601, Sabre, Westwind, and the KC-135.

Now here is some data regarding the first time visitors:

Total new visitors: 633 (a big jump on 2005, which gave us 516 newcomers). The first of the year was G550 CS-DKC on Jan 1st, and the final one was G-RJXO E145 on the 31st Dec.

The 633 total was made up of:

354 (328) Airliners
207 (143) Bizjets
36 ( 26) Helicopters (excl mil)
21 ( 13) GA
15 ( 6) Military (mainly Herks and helos)

The figures in parenthesis are 2005 totals, so you can see the biggest increase was in new Bizjet visitors.

Breaking down the airliner types, the make up was: 2006 v (2005)

149 (137) Boeing
136 (106) Airbus
19 ( 33) Embraer (incl Legacies)
5 ( 1) Dornier
5 ( 16) Fokker
3 ( 14) Bombardier
2 ( 1) Saab
2 ( 0) Antonov
1 ( 4) Beech
1 ( 2) Ilyushin
1 ( 1) Lockheed (not including the RAF Herks)
0 ( 2) ATR

Very much an Airbus & Boeing feast there.

With regard to Bizjets, the figures are: 2006 v (2005)

59 (41) Cessna
47 (24) Bombardier (incl Learjet)
38 (24) Raytheon (now called 'Hawker Beechcraft Corp')
32 (27) Gulfstream
28 (26) Dassault
1 ( 0) Aerospatiale
1 ( 1) IAI
1 ( 0) North American

So, a big increase this year in Bombardier products over 2005.

So who were the most prolific operators bringing in new aircraft?

35 NetJets Europe
25 THY
14 Air France
12 Emirates
12 SAS/SAS Braathens
12 KLM
11 Aeroflot
10 Etihad
10 Lufthansa
10 Hemus Air (incl other aircraft used by them!)

A big wow! there for NJE. They brought in 104 aircraft this year and 35 were new. A one in three ratio is quite startling.

And what were the most significant types in terms of volumes?
Those in double figures only:

33 A332
31 B738 & BBJ2
26 A320
21 H25B
19 A321
18 C56X
17 GLF5 & G550
17 F900
17 A109
17 B763
17 B777
16 B773
15 A319
14 146 & RJ100
14 A346
14 CL60
13 B735
12 B744
12 GLEX
11 GLF4/G400/G450
11 C525
11 C550
10 B733
10 B73G & BBJ1

The country prefix totals on new visitors look like this
(double figures only):

119 G- UK (incl mil.)
65 N USA (incl mil.)
43 CS- Portugal (the NJE effect!)
33 D- Germany
30 TC- Turkey
28 F- France
27 A6- UAE
27 VP- (a multitude of operators/countries encapsulated here)
20 HB- Switzerland
19 OE- Austria
16 PH- Holland
12 EI- Eire
11 LN- Norway
11 LZ- Bulgaria
11 OY- Denmark
10 A7- Qatar
10 EC- Spain
10 PP/PR/PT- Brazil

So what was the best month for 'newbies'?:

Nov-06, with 76 first visits (as mentioned earlier)

And the most likely day of the week to see something new?:

Sunday - 112 first timers

And the highest number of first visits in a single day?

Sunday 29th Oct, with 9 new registrations, which were: 5Y-KYA, A6-EBU, EI-DDK, N14075, PT-MVF, SE-RBK, TC-ARD, TC-JGS, ZK-OKA.

So what were the 'good' numbers?. This is totally subjective, but anything that only visited once and is unlikely to come back are obvious candidates. These three stick out as exceptional:

5Y-KYA B738 29-Oct
5Y-KYB B738 30-Nov
5Y-KYC B738 28-Dec

Others which I would consider memorable are:

0001 A319 14-May Surprised to see this here
5N-FGT BBJ 15-Jun Nice, but is bound to return someday
63-8033 KC135 11-Aug Especially good as I needed it
7T-VPG GLF5 11-Jul Pleased lots of people
7T-WIU IL76 10-Jul Our only IL76 of the year
F-WWDD A380 18-May A memorable day
HZ-AKV B777 01-Mar Easily the most satisfying number of the year!
HZ-MF1 BBJ 15-Nov Rare in the UK
J-755 GLF4 01-Sep Nice photo opportunity
N803DE MD11 04-Jun What a great scheme
P4-MAS B757 08-Aug Nice pedigree
P4-TAS A320 10-Oct (P4-PAS on 12-Sep was 2nd hand so not as good)
RA82080 A124 01-Aug First Antonov for while
UNB6701 B762 20-Nov ‘For make benefit'

Another great movement was 7O-YMN B74S on 14-Nov. This wasn't a first timer, but this time around I managed to put it in front of a camera lens so this pleased me quite a lot. In fact I put a lot of the above on digi, so I had a good year for photography.

Also a big mention for the following aircraft, none of which were new but all were most welcome return visitors:

5A-DDS GLF2 24-Feb
2116 B732 02-Mar
2401 KC707 06-Mar