London 2012: Heathrow Airport in numbers - BBC News
Heathrow in numbers - how the UK's biggest airport is getting ready for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Some 500,000 people will be flying into London for the Olympics and Paralympics this summer.
That includes 100,000 athletes, 20,000 members of the media and 150 heads of state. Most of them will arrive via Heathrow.
It will be the start and finish line for the bulk of visitors, giving the country's biggest airport its busiest day ever.
That day will be Monday 13 August, the day after the closing ceremony and the day 65% of visitors are planning to leave.
Some 203,000 bags will be squeezed on to the baggage system - that's 35% more than on a normal day and about 13,000 more than it is designed to handle.
Of those bags, 15,000 will be oversized - full of canoes, javelins, bikes and poles for the pole vault. There will also be more than 980 firearms to check, plus ammunition.
'Heavily-congested skies'A special temporary terminal is being built just for the "Games family" - athletes and coaches to you and me.
It will be open for three days, snuggled between terminals four and five, and will boast 31 check-in desks and seven security lanes.
Meanwhile, hundreds of extra border staff - they will not give an exact figure - will be on hand to try to keep passport queues down.
Sixteen mobile teams of 10 guards each will be available to target trouble spots if, or should that be when, the queues build up.
It is not just Heathrow of course.
Air traffic control is facing its biggest ever challenge, coping with heavily-congested skies, the threat of a terror attack and possible bad weather. Twenty-five controllers are practising in the simulator every day.
In all, 400 have been specially trained over the past four years to deal with the extra workload.
Any rogue planes should be spotted within two to three minutes, after which military controllers take over that zone and a decision is made whether or not to scramble fast jets.
Extra plane?The Paralympics is a third of the size of the main event but it is still a huge challenge.
“Start Quote
End QuoteThe Chinese team are arriving on 27 different planes and they'll probably need an extra plane at the end to carry all their medals”
Heathrow will have to deal with a month's worth of wheelchair users in just a week - about 1,800 in total.
Thirteen new scissor lifts and 100 new ramps have been deployed to load and unload wheelchairs while there are six new powered stair climbers to move large electric wheelchairs.
Two-hundred extra staff will welcome the Paralympians and help with the biggest challenge of all - making sure every athlete is reunited quickly with their chair.
As one Paralympian put it, you wouldn't expect able-bodied athletes to leave the plane in someone else's trainers would you?
The Chinese team are arriving on 27 different planes and they'll probably need an extra plane at the end to carry all their medals. I made that last bit up.
Finally, 1,000 local volunteers will greet athletes off the plane, help with their luggage and welcome them to London.
Then a few weeks later, as the Olympic flame dies, those volunteers will wave them off again as they head for home.
One thousand people will be standing there waving goodbye at planes, so if you happen to be going on holiday that day, you might want to wave back.
London 2012: Remaining Olympic tickets released for general sale - BBC News
Around 500,000 tickets for events at the London 2012 Olympic Games have been released for general sale, organisers Locog have said.
There are some £20 tickets left for sports such as volleyball, table tennis, weightlifting, taekwondo, boxing and fencing.
But several sports have sold out, and there are only higher-priced tickets left for most medal events.
The tickets went on sale at 11:00 BST, with a 24-hour window for purchases.
Their availability can already be viewed on the 2012 ticketing website.
Organisers Locog say there is a good number of tickets at the cost of £45 to £450 in sports including archery, badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, canoe sprint, diving, handball and hockey.
Only a limited number of tickets are available in race walk, mountain biking, artistic gymnastics and rowing.
Up to four tickets can be purchased per session, and up to four sessions in one transaction, for all available sports apart from football - where more tickets are available to encourage groups to attend.
'Delivered on promise'All tickets have been sold in some sports, including athletics, cycling, equestrianism, rhythmic gymnastics and swimming as well as the opening and closing ceremonies.
Locog commercial director Chris Townsend said: "Our priority has been to get as many people who missed out in the sales process last year to the Games.
"We have delivered on our promise and now another 150,000 people have successfully purchased up to four tickets each."
He warned: "Wednesday's sale is a live sale, and, like other high demand events including pop concerts, we expect the website to be very busy and customers may well be held in queues for over 30 minutes at peak times".
The online ticketing system sparked criticism last year after it crashed under high demand.
In some cases, the system reportedly informed potential buyers they had secured tickets, who were later told that they had failed.
Meanwhile, plans have been unveiled for a 10,000-spectator area with a giant screen showing live events in the Olympic Park during the Games.
"Park Live" will be open from early morning until late evening for fans without tickets for the sport venues.
Will you be trying to buy tickets for the Olympic Games? Will this be your first attempt? Please tell us about your experience using the form below.
London midday: Triple-digit losses for the Footsie - Life Style Extra
- CBO warns of US recession
- Chinese growth to be hampered if Greece leaves euro
London blue-chip index was registering steep losses on Wednesday as gains from the last two days were almost completely erased ahead of the EU summit this evening, with Greece likely to be at the top of the agenda.
Weighing on sentiment were comments from former Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos who said that an exit from the euro would have "catastrophic" consequences for Greece. "Although such a scenario is unlikely to materialise and it is not desirable either for Greece or for other countries, it cannot be excluded that preparations are being made to contain the potential consequences of a Greek euro exit," he said in an interview with Dow Jones.
International pressure has been mounting on Eurozone leaders to take quick action to stave off the recession that threatens the region. The European Council, which includes the heads of state or government of the 27 European Union member states, is holding an informal dinner Wednesday evening at 18:00 London time, where the members are expected to discuss both the situation in Greece and measures to increase growth.
French President Franois Hollande is expected to press German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the implementation of the so-called 'eurobonds' (debt issued and backed by the entire Eurozone together).
Gloomy comments from the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) were also dampening the mood today. The CBO warned of a risk of recession for the world's largest economy in 2013 if the Bush-era tax reductions were allowed to expire at the same time as spending cuts come into effect. It said that the US economy could contract by 1.3% in the first half of next year as the government falls off a "fiscal cliff".
UK economy
In domestic news, the Bank of England's top decision makers indicated that more of them were on the verge of voting to increase stimulus measures at their lasting meeting. While the Monetary Policy Committee voted 8-to-1 to keep the Bank's quantitative easing programme steady at 325bn, the minutes of the meeting showed that "for several members, the decision not to expand the asset purchase programme at this meeting was finely balanced".
UK retail sales registered their biggest monthly fall in April, with fuel sales tailing off dramatically after the panic buying in March, when motorists were encouraged by the government to stock up on petrol.
FTSE 100: Miners tank on risk aversion
The blue-chip miners were dominating the fallers list on the Footsie by midday as metals prices dropped on concerns that the Chinese economy may be affected greatly by Greece leaving the euro: investment bank China International Capital Corp said today that the world's second-largest economy could see its lowest levels of growth in more than two decades in this scenario. Mining peers Vedanta Resources, Xstrata, Glencore, Kazakhmys, Fresnillo, Rio Tinto, Polymetal and Antogasta were suffering heavy losses.
UK banking titan Barclays was out of favour after it announced the pricing details of the open offer part of its recently announced sale of its stake in US wealth management giant Blackrock. Barclays has agreed to sell 26.2m shares of Blackrock in an underwritten public offering at a price of $160 a share.
Iconic British luxury brand Burberry dropped despite reporting solid profit growth in the year ended March 31st. Adjusted profit before tax increased by 26% from 298m to 376m, broadly in line with estimates. Analysts at Investec said this morning that bears make "take issue" today given the lack of upgrades following the results.
There were just a handful of risers on the FTSE 100; British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) was one of them after the Competition Commission announced that it was no longer concerned that 'Sky Movies' has an unfair advantage over its competitors.
FTSE 250: LSE falls after Italian banks sell up
Italian banks UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo have announced that they have sold their combined 11.5% stake of market operator London Stock Exchange (LSE), causing shares to take a tumble today. The banks made the transaction via an "accelerated bookbuild" at 960p per share, a discount to Tuesday's closing price.
Heading the other way was online grocer Ocado after saying it expects year on year gross sales growth of around 13% for the 12 weeks ending 13 May as demand for online food shopping grows and it overcomes constraints at its warehouse in Hatfield.
FTSE 100 - Risers
Smith & Nephew (SN.) 601.50p +1.60%
Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (MRW) 268.70p +0.26%
British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSY) 692.00p +0.22%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Vedanta Resources (VED) 986.50p -5.78%
Xstrata (XTA) 920.60p -5.38%
Man Group (EMG) 73.50p -5.34%
Glencore International (GLEN) 342.90p -5.17%
Kazakhmys (KAZ) 699.50p -5.15%
Fresnillo (FRES) 1,320.00p -4.83%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 2,802.50p -4.56%
Polymetal International (POLY) 803.50p -4.29%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 1,031.00p -4.18%
Barclays (BARC) 181.50p -3.92%
FTSE 250 - Risers
Ocado Group (OCDO) 106.90p +5.01%
Paragon Group Of Companies (PAG) 162.50p +3.50%
FirstGroup (FGP) 211.20p +3.07%
Spirent Communications (SPT) 158.20p +2.86%
Great Portland Estates (GPOR) 392.20p +2.62%
Ophir Energy (OPHR) 586.50p +2.62%
Daejan Holdings (DJAN) 2,735.00p +2.51%
Greggs (GRG) 468.10p +2.43%
JD Sports Fashion (JD.) 718.00p +2.06%
Brewin Dolphin Holdings (BRW) 142.10p +1.72%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) 953.00p -6.66%
Ferrexpo (FXPO) 214.00p -6.63%
Aquarius Platinum Ltd. (AQP) 77.80p -6.49%
Petropavlovsk (POG) 391.70p -6.43%
Premier Farnell (PFL) 170.00p -5.97%
Logica (LOG) 64.90p -5.19%
Lonmin (LMI) 744.00p -5.16%
TUI Travel (TT.) 164.80p -5.07%
Fenner (FENR) 385.40p -4.82%
New World Resources A Shares (NWR) 323.00p -4.44%
BC
The Olympic and Paralympic Games will be the biggest sporting event in the UK this year. Will you be travelling to the UK to see the Games? Please send us your comments and experiences.