With the Open Skies deal and any European carrier being permitted to fly the Atlantic, BA have already stated that they are keen to offer flights from other countries and Virgin are also looking at their options. The airlines themselves should be looking at better ways to move people around and to maximise transfer passengers. Air France manage extremely well between Paris and Brussels with TGV. Brussels is practically CDG North Terminal.

Craig, London,

The presence of a TGV terminal at Paris-CDG airport allows airlines like American, United and Air France to code share with the TGV and sell "flights" to destinations for which they have no slots. This has dramatically reduced the number of internal flights. This probably explains why the unpopular project of adding a runway at one of the Paris airports has never re-surfaced. If it worked for Paris, why wouldn't it work for London?
Concerning the comparison between rail and maglev, Benbow is quite right. The loss due to wheel-rail friction has been made negligible by modern engineering, but nothing can be done about air resistance. It grows with the square of the speed, so at 500 mph this resistance becomes enormous and both TGV and maglev would become wasteful electricity guzzlers.

Peretti, Bastia, France

When will the protagonists of Maglev think through their arguments. Through out UK and Europe we have standard gauge rails on which all trains can run - either from High Speed lines such as HS1 and the French LGV network or from conventional regional lines. This gives real "connectivity" and not just a shuttle between cities on very expensive right -of - way! And to travel at the claimed 500mph of Maglev don't forget that the aerodynamic losses and hence energy consumption would be approaching that ot aircraft.

BENBOW, Andover,

It's a great idea, but this would be inferior to the Maglev option: http://www.500kmh.com/projectinfo.html.

James Brown, London,

This seems a very useful and constructive idea, with plenty of wins. Shame it'll never be approved.

Justin, Nr. Lincoln, UK

I think that an increase in the accessibility to high speed trains in UK should be welcomed and supported by the government. However, these trains should be put in competition with the car not the plane. What we need are trains that can take us from the centre of town to the centre of town. Can get us from home, to port, air or sea, to work and are affordable.

Let us also not forget that these trains are often powered by mains electricity which, if produced from coal firing stations.. is much dirtier than any plane.

Calvin Bailey, London, GBR

I think that the idea to link Heathrow Air Port to the Channel Tunnel is a great idea.
I hope that it will be succssees.
Because I think that trains use less energy
than air craft and produce less pollusion.
It will also reduce the number of cars
on the roads.

Joel Fridjohn, Hod Hasharon, Israel