That is currently the case for the announcement today that Swiss is returning to the Heathrow-Geneva market after a six year hiatus with a six-times-a-day schedule.

Now my assumption is that these slots are coming from fellow Lufthansa Group partner struggling UK carrier bmi - that's not a tough call really is it! And quite frankly using these slots on the profitable UK-Switzerland market makes sense from the group perspective.

The interesting background to this story is that Swiss pulled off Geneva and sold Heathrow slots to British Airways in 2003 as part of the price for entering the oneworld Alliance and securing some much-needed cash from BA.

Swiss UK country manager Gregor Koncilja (below) is careful not to say anything about the slot issue, but regardless he is clearly delighted to expand his Heathrow offering with the Geneva route.

Swiss also operates six times a day to Zurich from Heathrow, as well as seven times a day from London City Airport to Zurich. Its six time daily service from City to Geneva will go down by two flights when Heathrow begins.

Rather uniquely Swiss can sell both airports on one ticket, with some travellers jetting off from City to Switzerland directly from the offices in downtown London, but returning to the west of London Heathrow for more convenient access to home.

The new route will be operated with one Swiss Airbus A319 and a bmi A320 and the two carriers will also forge a wider codeshare pact for UK-Switzerland flights.

A landmark day in Heathrow's history today, as the last passengers transit through Terminal 2 today before it is knocked down and work begins on its successor.

It is being knocked down after 54 years in service and was originally designed to cater for 1.2 million passengers annually (and last year handled 7.5 million). It used to look like this back in the 1980s (actually, it does sort of look a bit like this now come to think of it).

The old terminal is being knocked down to make way for the new Heathrow East modernisation which will ultimately become home for Star Alliance carriers.

Work begins on the new terminal next year and it is scheduled to open to passengers in 2014. To take a peek at what its successor will look like and for more details click here.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/08/10/330767/picture-latest-heathrow-terminal-2-design-unveiled.html

Unprompted, Stefan said this to Brendan:

"Everybody who runs an airline always tries to have the lowest cost possible because it's a bloody asset driven business. It's just common sense.

"If you have an asset driven business then you try to operate it with the lowest cost possible. Everyone wants the lowest cost possible but on the other hand everyone wants the highest revenue possible. So we all chase for the lowest cost and highest revenue.

"The only one difference is a new start up company has lower costs than an established legacy airline because they are start up businesses.

"So forget about all this bull shit about low-cost airlines - everyone tries to be low-cost. Everyone! It's a stupid little label. It's a stupid label for people like you (journalists)."

THAT TOLD US STEFAN!

Actually, Airline Business has long wondered about the low-cost carrier label, but not so much that we won't stop using it.

See this leader article from June 2008: What is the real thing?

For instance, if the island's flag carrier Air Malta didn't exist would this tiny island off the coast of Italy in the Mediterranean find itself cut off (the photo shows Valletta the rather stunning capital of Malta)? Probably not: there are plenty of airlines willing to serve Malta with connections to the wider world via London, Paris and Frankfurt.

But the government of Malta, like those in many other island states, would always be worried that it had little control over these connections.

That worry comes at a cost. The joy for airline chief executives like Joe Cappello is to try and minimise this cost, and in an ideal world make a bit of money.

See the video interview with Joe Cappello here.

As he told Airline Business last week: "I don't need to have to be a highly profitable carrier, but my shareholder does want an airline that provides sufficient capacity for an island nation [passenger and cargo]." It is seen as a "strategic asset", says Joe.

Making Air Malta profitable is Joe's current task and it involves a three-year restructuring plan that features new working arrangements with staff, including possible out-sourcing, and selling off various things like hotels, its duty free operation and its office buildings in London.

The target is to get Air Malta to a breakeven or small profit in two years.

Along the way Joe hopes this small carrier, which has 11 Airbus A320 family aircraft (all leased from ILFC), will not have to ask the government for more cash. "We have never been subsidised in 35 years," he says, and the aim is to continue that tradition.

FOR MORE AIRLINE CEO INTERVIEWS FROM AIRLINE BUSINESS CLICK HERE

A few years back, as US, Middle Eastern and Indian carriers piled into Heathrow, slot prices boomed.

Now, as this interesting story from The Times says, the recession means shifting these once priceless assets is no easy matter, at least for anything approaching a decent price assuming a buyer is around.

For loss-making bmi, which is essentially built around the value of its Heathrow slot portfolio, and desperately needs cash in the next year, this is a body blow.

The fall in slot values is however only going to be a temporary measure, but it looks as if temporary could be a couple of years rather than months, and that is not good news for bmi or parent Lufthansa as they seek to revive the ailing UK carrier.

"The problem is there is too much capacity everywhere," he says. "It's the toughest environment I've ever experienced. Yields are under pressure everywhere, with the exception of some niche markets." While noting the roller-coaster nature of the airline business is always high and lows,he highlights the global nature of this downturn make it one of the toughest years he's even seen. "It might even get worse [for some] this winter," he adds.

What a time then to be launching a string of new international routes? Oman Air opened London last year, has recently added Frankfurt, Munich, Paris, the Maldives, while Sri Lanka -after a few delays in the process - follows in the middle of this month. This expansion is all tied to the Omani Government's tourism ambitions and Hill appreciates the benefit of having an owner with a long-term strategy. While the group will lose money during this expansion, Hill says the aim is to grow the network now so as to establish it as sustainable airline. Within five years he expects the group to at least reach break-even. You can read more on Oman's Air strategy here

Expect to hear more about Oman Air's expansion plans over the coming weeks and check out our video below as he explains some of the benefits to growing in a downturn:

The article is part of a wide-ranging special report on the Middle East aerospace sector published by Flight International, while you can also read the recent Airline Business stories on how the Middle East airline sector continues to grow and interviews with the new chief executives at Egyptair, Gulf Air and Royal Jordanian.

After BA posted first half losses today, the carrier reiterated its belief there were structural changes taking place in the industry, particularly relevent to its short-haul premium business where yields have been hard hit. Asked during a conference call with analysts today about the long-term future for premium in short-haul, Walsh outlined the robust future role he envisages at Heathrow.

"We believe we can continue to justify two-class service at Heathrow for some considerable time. Ten years from now I would expect we will still be operating a two-class service at Heathrow," he says. "I think the nature of the change we've seen primarily relates to point-to-point short-haul premium. I think that is structural. We see that where the short-haul leg is part of a combined short-haul/long-haul product, there is still demand for that product. So even with the most pessimistic outlook on this, we still believe this is a viable proposition for us, though it will be at a lower level and so the revenue stream will reduce, so we need to say a structural change."

But he acknowledges Gatwick provides a different challenge."I'm not convinced we can continue to provide it at Gatwick, because I think the demand at Gatwick is very different to the demand at Heathrow. We don't get as much transfer from short-haul to long-haul, so I think its probably a question of time, and sooner rather than later that we would address the issue of potentially moving to a single cabin configuration for short-haul at Gatwick."

Talking of Gatwick, Walsh said he had already spoken to the new owners of the south London airport. "I still see Gatwick as an opportunity for us," he says. "We've head early discussions with the new owners. We see the change of ownership as an opportunity," he says, noting this was not a criticism of previous management, but his believe Gatwick would benefit from more focused management.

Direct comparison with 2008 is nigh on impossible, given the complexities of trying to come up a with a like-for-like comparison of this year against a combination of slimmed down versions of Air One and Alitalia, even if figures for Alitalia in 2008 were readily available - which they are not. But the profit follows losses of €210 million and €63 million incurred in the first and second quarters respectively and outstrips its own target of reaching breakeven for the third quarter.

And while it might only be a modest profit, it must be a boost to the carrier given the tough market conditions and bearing in mind the old Alitalia racked of net losses in excess $3 billion between 2003-07 alone.

"The ability which Alitalia is demonstrating to be able to deal with a scenario of a market in great difficulty proves the validity of the industrial operation and of the investment made by the stockholders," says Alitalia chairman Robert Colaninno, who led the group of Italian investors which formally took control of the carrier early this year "The challenges that lie ahead are again many and complex, but today we know that we have the means to face them."

Virgin says the app, which features an introduction by Richard Branson, is designed to help people cope with the anxiety at the prospect of flying and overcome their personal fears.

The app explains questions that people commonly have like "what happens if all the engines fail" or "what are all the onboard noises".

It has a video-based explanation of a flight from start to finish, relaxation exercises and fear therapy and a fear attack button for emergencies with breathing exercises.

It's a nice idea to make this mobile from Virgin, and comes with a small price tag of £2.99 (not sure if there is a US$ or € price?)

Now I want someone to invent an app that can tell you if you are sitting near someone was has this app so you can move seat accordingly.

Ryanair increased first half net profits to €387 million from €225 million at the same stage last year, and while it expects to lose money over the second half of its financial year, is still targeting increased full-year profits net profits at the lower end of its €200 million to €300 million target range. This comes on top of Spanish budget carrier Vueling - recently merged with fellow Barcelona carrier Clickair - which has just announced a trebling of it third quarter operating profits to just under €70 million, while growing Scandinavian budget carrier Norwegian more than doubled its third quarter operating profit to NKr475 million ($85 million).

While Ryanair's yields have been sharply hit by the recession - average fares down 17% in the first half and the carrier is projecting yields falling by up to 20% over the second half - its unit costs were down 27% in the first half driven by the sharp reduction in fuel costs (down from €422 million in the third quarter last year to €246 million this time around).

A further sign of the carrier's growth - the long-term future of which O'Leary has raised a question mark over in relation to his attempts to secure a new aircraft deal with Boeing - is shown by his belief it will shortly become the number one carrier in three of Europe's most important markets. This he says is a result of the carrier's own growth and the short-haul capacity cuts of major European carriers.

"We really are growing very rapidly in some of the big markets," he says, in particularly of its position in the UK, Italy and Spain. "We will shortly be the number one airline in the UK, Italy and Spain," he predicts.

Picture credit: Billypix 

But I am puzzled by one little area, which I assume is top deck front, at the entrance to the stairs. Air France calls this the gallery. I would call it a dead zone. There is no room for proper seats so it has become a kind of hanging about area.

Can anybody think of a better use for this area?

A few suggestions:

* Another loo - there are never enough on an aircraft are there?

* A shower

* An arcade area - a couple of playstation type games or a slot machine could be a good ancillary revenue source

* Table football / hockey etc

Here are those links:

Air France A380 will get fourth class later on

Air France rolls out first A380

The Air France A380 website with lots of photos, video and press kit

Continental President Jeff Smisek likened the carrier's entry into Star to a first class upgrade while United's CEO Glenn Tilton stressed Star is an alliance that treats "all members as true and equal partners."