British Airways & Virgin Atlantic A350s Perform Heathrow Dual Runway Takeoff

I’ll be at McCarran (Harry Reid!) at 2pm to watch the first Virgin Atlantic flight land. Curious if they’ll do a water cannon salute.

Awww, that was cool to listen to and watch, a nice way to start the week.

I hope not. I'm really not trying to be a downer, but I've always viewed a water cannon salute as absurd, and an enormous waste of water. I think some sort of greeting ceremony (with flags, etc) looks better.

As a geek that is officially the coolest thing I have seen in months. What a sight to behold.

VS3 is currently on track to win this race.

What would be cool, if JFK would be in on it too, is to land 31L 31R at the same time too.

I agree. Not so much hoping for one as curious if they’ll do one. And especially w the water woes here in the desert, it’d be a bad look. (That said, a few years ago I was on a final flight for a retiring AA pilot and the water cannon salute from inside the plane? Pretty cool!)

Unless Greta owns Virgin Atlantic, not having a water canon salute is an insult. Not giving a retired pilot a proper send off they deserve is an insult.

Last year was the year for pilot retirements. I've flown on 4 of them, only 1 time was unpleasant because I had a tight connection. 🙁

If anyone view it as waste of water, then throwing any ceremony is a waste of something.
Global warming? Ever consider how much energy cryptocurrency wastes? Ether and bitcoin all time high. Little Greta should be all over this and not COP26.

And it didn't happen.

Happened on my flight ORDDCA a couple of months ago. Only one I've been on. His brother was a captain for Delta and was in the cockpit (are we allowed to say that now?) with him.

I find it offensive that they both celebrated reopening travel to America using x2 European Airbus. Why could they not use Boeing 787?

A very rude gesture and a front to America.

This is pretty cool, not gonna lie

VS3 won, coming in 9 min earlier...

VS3 won. Arrived in JFK at 11:01am EST
BA1 arrived 6 minutes later at 11:06am EST

Wow! This is probably one of the most exciting and captivating things I’ve seen as an AvGeek. I almost laughed watching how it all played out in the video. Looks like the Virgin pilots pulled a bit harder on the stick during the climb out. And like always, it’s a wonderful treat to observe the colorful diversity of airlines from all over the world that fly to Heathrow in the background. It’s great to see the US reopening!

For those concerned that a water canon salute is a waste of water, every ARFF at a commercial airport is required to test spray their trucks once per day. The fire fighters would much rather do a salute than just spraying at a target next to the fire house.

Ben, did you figure out why business class was not bookable on BA1 when you first wrote about this flight a while ago?

The correct company quote of the day is an old question of how an airline functions when it happens a few times!

Such a great day and I read that NYC is lighting up with a special light show tonight.

Weren't there flights between the US and UK every day even before this ban ended? Not sure why this is a big deal.

Does this mean American will return to using glassware on their only International First class routes currently to Heathrow ?

Damn. I'm not even British and that brought a tear of pride to my eye. Welcome back to our dear British friends!

Yes. BA001 and VS003 (1 and 3 - 13) taking off today, both on A350's (2 airplanes) signifies that AA will now be launching glassware in premium cabins on 11NOV (13-2=11!)

Hi Lucky. Would it not actually be since March 16, 2020?

Maybe because they're Europeans and not American?

This is why MAGA will never work. You can't just Amricanwash everything into USA.

N.B. Technically, native Americans never built commercial airplanes so Boeing is just another European (German) immigrant plane.

@ViewsFromTheRamp
You can't convince these environmentalist anything. They will keep coming at you forever.
Totally agree that they need to do safety test everyday.

But look at whaling. Even for scientific purposes, they still complain. What makes you think these salute will get special treatments.

You just can't reason with Greta.

I'm confused by this. Didn't the travel ban end weeks ago? Was britain not included when the ban on Europeans was lifted?

This is so cool, well done BA and VS!

European Pride, we all know that the A350 is far superior to the 787

Were their take-off rolls choreographed because that was one of the slowest take-off rolls for the A350-1000 that I have seen. I am also surprised that a better resolution video could not be made available.

Those are just muzzle flashes.

WOW you can always work together even if you are a competition.

'You can't convince these environmentalist anything. They will keep coming at you forever.'
Absolutely.

When it comes to having fun with fireworks they don't have a problem with the environment even if it produces more C02 than Diesel cars.

https://www.inverse.com/article/33365-fireworks-pollution