I think 'business as usual' is going to be very different post-covid. C-suite execs are seeing their business still working just fine while their very expensive office buildings are sitting there empty. We moved 5000 people to working from home overnight, and everything carried on as normal. Yes, some people are not enjoying working from home, but thats likely because it was forced on them and they can't even get away from it in lockdown, but I know most of my office-based colleagues are very much enjoying getting up an hour later because they don't have to commute every morning.

Is rush hour going to be a thing any more? Are people going to be clamouring to get back in to the office once this is over? I suspect not.

I filled up the A6 on the Monday before lockdown (just before oil prices crashed obviously). It'll do 700 miles on a tank so I probably won't need to fill up again until August :rolleyes:

My elder son is rather looking forwards to getting back to the office, and he's based in one of the big towers in Canary Wharf!
That said, he's extremely busy and can commute by car (parks in Billingsgate) much quicker than public transport.
Not sure his wife is so keen though, she works next to St Pauls Cathedral and usually goes by bus, though can walk (long trek).

Had a look at what's flown over you (MJ) around 1pm and there was a 747 (KLM cargo) heading from Miami to Amsterdam but some way north and to the south a TUI Dreamliner going from Bournemouth to the Dominican Republic! Maybe a rescue flight?
Apart from that some unidentified planes from QinetiQ (Empire Test Pilots School) are around the area, probably out of Boscombe Down.

I'm not hearing anything that would entice me to jump on a train for the hour plus commute into central London - the vague nonsense about asking companies to stagger staff working hours won't achieve a sufficient reduction in peak hours demand on crammed trains on the Brighton mainline. They run massively overloaded most of the time, pre-lockdown.

It will be employees turning up on platforms and seeing rammed carriages and making the call that they don't want to be one of those sheep trying to squeeze on as well.

The tech to wfh isn't perfect, but when it doesn't work you can now just shrug your shoulders and go do something else if you can't connect to a meeting.

I'm also enjoying not spending £4.5k on a train ticket

Novelty arrival at Heathrow! Heard a large loud plane a few minutes ago on the approach track to Heathrow just a couple of miles south of us.
An A380 of China Southern Airlines from Guangzhou, it's just landed (early).

Followed in by a more common BA 777 from Peking.

I have also noticed that the skies are mostly clear these days, with proper blue colour. And I have been observing the sky every day since July 1st 2017, when I was astounded by the lines in the sky from airplanes - probably geoengineering. All in all I have 500+ photos documenting this phenomenon.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1588798476

An Amsterdam to Sao Paulo passed over Barnstaple Cross just after 10:30pm.
Slightly odd as that isn't the great circle direct route.... (that's over northern France)

I live under a flight path for Bristol airport and it's noticeably quieter now. I think the last plane I saw and heard was what looked like an A400M a few days ago.

I've been working from home now and it's much nicer not having to commute by train and having more time with the family. I'm missing driving the 8 though but keeping it going with the odd click & collect! Need to fit those new grommets from MJ soon.

Not so much a novelty now, but a rarity. Excluding scrapped, ordered and not built yet, there are 236 A380s that have been put in storage. That only leaves 5 currently flying, three of which are operated by China Southern Airlines.

The numbers are staggering. There's a short video on YouTube giving some insight into the current situation. Roughly 24,000 planes worldwide, with 16,000 being put into storage!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpIs8Y9vgSs

Cost wise, it costs something like US$30,000 per month to put them in storage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7li6ozxo-rQ

That aligns roughly with the stats you can look at on Fightradar24. They say that worldwide commercial flights in April were down at just above 25% of last years figures, though they are now slowly rising.
I guess if you've got a plane you use it 100% or not at all. :rolleyes:

The quietest day in the air (for a very very long time) was 12th April, but that was also Easter Sunday.
It was also our 45th wedding anniversary and we were supposed to be on Iona and Staffa (seeing Fingal's cave). Which obviously we weren't..... :-(

That same A380 just left Heathrow going back to China, flew straight over our house at 22:55, very loud!