Historic dual runway take off from Heathrow

Not rare, perhaps, but neat to watch two big jets rolling together. Even if they are hundreds of feet apart!

International borders reopening IS rare, hence the historic nature of the takeoff

Of course as usual the news media has to make it a rare event. It sells.

You seem to have missed the entire point of this story. Simultaneous takeoffs on parallel runways probably happen thousands of times a day around the world. That wasn't the point. They were highlighting the fact that those two rival airlines coordinated a symbolic simultaneous departure to highlight the full reopening of those routes that had been so dramatically curtailed over the last 20 months. It was a deliberate PR event, hence the reason the media covered it.

Virgin by 9 minutes.