Hello, it's Thursday the 12th of August and thanks for joining me for the latest on travel and destinations from the Green List and the travel desk of the Independent.

Coming to you today from Heathrow Airport Terminal 2.

Because today there's a new kid in town. JetBlue has just landed here from New York JFK.

The UK is lagging behind the rest of Europe in holiday terms,

according to Tui, that is,

and legal action against the government for its red list policies.

Of course, this podcast is completely free, as is my weekly travel email,

which, by the way, is going to be coming your way at 7am tomorrow if you kindly sign up at

independent.co.uk forward slash newsletters. Here at Heathrow, which has been pretty moribund for the past 18 months or so, there's been some good news.

Well, first of all, the July figures were much better than any of the previous months so far this year, though that's not saying much.

What people are excited about is the arrival of JetBlue.

And I'm just looking up at the departure screen to see that at 205, JetBlue Flight 20 will depart for New York.

This, you might think, is the last thing that anybody needs. You've already got American

Airlines, British Airways, Delta, United and Virgin Atlantic, all flying regularly from Heathrow

to New York, and therefore what is JetBlue bringing to the party? Well, the answer is a new kind of service.

First of all, it's narrow-bodied only, it's an Airbus, A321, ultra-long range. Now,

these are funny old planes because literally they are old, or rather this is a new incarnation of a very old plane

and they were first around in the early 90s and nobody thought much of them it was just a stretched version of the familiar airbus a 320

but gradually people have realized that this is possibly the solution for long, thin routes, if you like.

But of course, New York to London could not be fatter in terms of it being the world's

premium intercontinental airline, at least for many, air route for many years.

But JetBlue with just one pair of slots a day believes that it is going to make a difference.

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