A 30-minute flight from Heathrow to Cardiff is not as dumb or stupid as it sounds!
We have reached 35 signatures, a very good start!
My proposed idea of this new route on BA’s network is that these new flights would be scheduled to take 30 minutes from take-off to touchdown (though obviously longer if stuck in a holding pattern), will cruise at a ground speed of up to around 300-350mph and reach an altitude of roughly 13,000 feet (Flight Level 130) before descending, similar to how the Heathrow-Manchester shuttle flight already operates with just enough time for on-board refreshments.
Whenever both Severn bridges are closed (M4 and M48) due to bad weather, or the Severn Tunnel is closed due to maintenance, road and rail users are caught up in delays and face lengthy detours going through Gloucester so a direct flight from Cardiff to London Heathrow Airport is a NO BRAINER and is absolutely needed for those in South Wales (even as far away as Swansea and Pembrokeshire) to make direct connections.
These proposed Cardiff-London flights should only be used by passengers in South Wales wanting to make connections with flights at Heathrow to far-flung destinations such as Tokyo and Mumbai to avoid the hassle of experiencing delays on motorways and railways and having to change trains at Paddington for the Heathrow Express.
People travelling just to South Wales from London (who are not flying/connecting to another flight) should use road and rail transport instead as my new proposed BA route is exclusively for passengers wanting to connect to other long-haul flights from Heathrow.
As a regular change.org campaigner obsessed with checking my campaign’s CSV spreadsheets, this is a national issue so we need domestic, BRITISH signatures (particularly from Cardiff and South Wales) and because of the cause, our campaign is allowed to remain geofenced to British feeds and in a UK echo chamber, as unless British expatriates are residing in Australia, Australian signatures are useless for this specific cause and this is where rows of “United Kingdom” on my CSV spreadsheets work flawlessly! International users who visit the UK however are absolutely more than welcome to sign this campaign.
The image above is my proposed flight path (based on Flightradar24 flights) from Heathrow to Cardiff west of Reading and I hope to reach 100 signatures by the end of the year, 35 signatures is not a bad start despite gaining our first signatures nearly seven months late, which is better than never.
I propose and would suggest that all of you who have so far signed write to BA for my new proposed route for their network and this is a change that can easily be implemented. A 15-minute flight between Heathrow and Birmingham is unnecessary, however Cardiff is far enough away from London for my proposed 30-minute new BA flight route.
My campaign’s explicit secondary aim is to convince Great Western Railway to reintroduce the discontinued car shuttle train service through the Severn Tunnel (similar to Eurotunnel) when both bridges are closed for bad weather and another possible idea, if feasible, is for Great Western Railway to offer a service from Paddington to Salisbury (using the Reading to Basingstoke line) using the bi-mode rolling stock to give travellers the alternative to using “scary” Class 159 services from Waterloo despite never having travelled that route myself due to a phobia of the Class 159 DMUs.
BA also needs to bring back their drop down map screens on their new Airbus A321neo aircraft!
In hindsight, the transport options for journeys from London to Cardiff should be exactly identical to the options from London to Paris (car/shuttle train, Eurostar and flights)!
Ro---- Miles Ash----- (Mr. Easter)