> Incidentally I am amazed at how many more Airbus planes fly into Heathrow than Boeing. Particularly with the smaller jets, A320 size the equivalent Boeing planes seem relatively rare. Imaginably they are on a different flight path.

There's a transatlantic divide here: Airbus is a European manufacturer and disproportionately popular in Europe, the converse is true with Boeing in America. The NYT being a US paper and HN being a mostly-American site, you'll see a tendency to favour Boeing here.