Snow at Heathrow

[anonymous-user]

I'm flying from Heathrow on Sunday, and locals able to give me an update as to what the snow is like at the moment? Forecast on the BBC says snow up until Sunday so I'm hoping the flights are kept running if possible.

Cheers
Iain

[Puggit]

Heathrow has remained open the entire period. There have been delays, and short haul flights with BA always suffer most.

Living in Reading under the flight path, now with 10 inches of snow and no road traffic moving in our area, it's strange that the only sound is jets on approach!

Wait and see what the forecast for Sunday brings on Saturday, you won't know until then!

[anonymous-user]

Thanks for the update, I was checking the live departure boards earlier and some flights were saying 'check with your airline' - I was concerned that this meant 'flight cancelled'!

I'll keep my eye on things,

Iain

[SeeFive]

A personal experience. My daughter was flying from Gatwick this morning. On hearing the weather forecast on Sunday, we booked her into the Sofitel at the north terminal for the night before, making sure that she was there for the departure time. However, the snow at LGW was so bad today, her flight was cancelled along with all the others.

The next BA flight to Tunisia is on Friday. This means that we had no way of getting her back due to weather, and had to very quickly get her booked into one of the rapidly diminishing supply of hotel rooms in the area until Friday, to avoid her having to rough it in the terminal building for 2 nights.

Tough choices - if you are not there due to bad travel conditions on the way to the airport and your plane goes, you lose. If you are there, and they screw up, it all depends on whether they cancel or delay your flight, and if you are willing to rough it for free, or pay for a little more comfort. I have no idea whether travel insurance covers this type of thing, but for the sake of 150quid for 3 nights in a 4 star hotel, rather than 3 nights in an airport terminal, it's worth it IMO. With 5 hour queues at the BA desk, there was no way I was going to wait on them sorting her out for the next 2 nights.

One thing is for sure, if you decide on Saturday that you need to stay overnight because of weather, your choice of hotels are going to be limited at best. And currently, the weather forecast for Saturday night is not good.