Will I be flying out of Heathrow Sunday 10pm??
Discussion
Flying out of Heathrow at 10pm Sunday with Cathy Pacific to Oz via Hong Kong. Can't get any details from airline whether it will fly on time or what the delay may be and appreciate they probably don't know.
Does anyone down on the ground have an idea on how bad the backlog is and whether I should be planning for a hefty delay.
Weather says no more snow....
Does anyone down on the ground have an idea on how bad the backlog is and whether I should be planning for a hefty delay.
Weather says no more snow....
matt21 said:
Flying out of Heathrow at 10pm Sunday with Cathy Pacific to Oz via Hong Kong. Can't get any details from airline whether it will fly on time or what the delay may be and appreciate they probably don't know.
Does anyone down on the ground have an idea on how bad the backlog is and whether I should be planning for a hefty delay.
Weather says no more snow....
I very much doubt it. They're not opening for inbound flights until midnight at the earliest. Does anyone down on the ground have an idea on how bad the backlog is and whether I should be planning for a hefty delay.
Weather says no more snow....
Our morning flight was cancelled as was every other outbound flight (bar 7) until 7pm. At 7 they'll announce further delays if yesterday was anything to go by.
The official answer is 'check with your airline as they're the first to know'. However, since there's a 3 hours wait on most phone lines for large airlines I don't fancy your chances!
I'm sorry but this situation blows my mind, not the OP question as it's quite understandable under the circumstances and lack of information.
ffs BBC telling people to sign up to twitter in order to follow situation with airlines and airports.
How much money does Thiefrow take each year, even less than an inch of snow can reduce it to a shambles.
How much snow have the prats to deal with this time.
At Arlanda we despatch these PSB machines Plough/Sweep/Blower see below, in echelons of eight at a time, followed by a snowblower followed by a formiate truck spraying anti-skid formula. Followed by a skid tester.
A runways can be cleared in 6 to 10 minutes dependant upon rate of snowfall and which runway. Still get overwhelmed on some occasions as for each 2cm of snow that falls 1,200 of these have to be moved away.
OK it's not reasonable to expect Thiefrow to have this level of clearance but FFS what we are seeing now is 3rd world!!!!!!!!!
ffs BBC telling people to sign up to twitter in order to follow situation with airlines and airports.
How much money does Thiefrow take each year, even less than an inch of snow can reduce it to a shambles.
How much snow have the prats to deal with this time.
At Arlanda we despatch these PSB machines Plough/Sweep/Blower see below, in echelons of eight at a time, followed by a snowblower followed by a formiate truck spraying anti-skid formula. Followed by a skid tester.
A runways can be cleared in 6 to 10 minutes dependant upon rate of snowfall and which runway. Still get overwhelmed on some occasions as for each 2cm of snow that falls 1,200 of these have to be moved away.
OK it's not reasonable to expect Thiefrow to have this level of clearance but FFS what we are seeing now is 3rd world!!!!!!!!!
matt21 said:
Flying out of Heathrow at 10pm Sunday with Cathy Pacific to Oz via Hong Kong. Can't get any details from airline whether it will fly on time or what the delay may be and appreciate they probably don't know.
Does anyone down on the ground have an idea on how bad the backlog is and whether I should be planning for a hefty delay.
Weather says no more snow....
My family's flight from LHR at 10pm to Dubai with Virgin has just been cancelled. Don't fancy your chances much.Does anyone down on the ground have an idea on how bad the backlog is and whether I should be planning for a hefty delay.
Weather says no more snow....
matt21 said:
Well as suggested here looks like I will be going nowhere..at least I can watch the Apprentice final 
How does it normally work, is it cancelled full stop or will I likely fly tomorrow/Tuesday etc?
If it's cancelled you go to the back of the queue. They will obviously try and get you on another flight somehow, but it isn't a case of today's cancelled passengers got on tomorrow's flight and tomorrow's passengers are then bumped wherever. That means two sets of pissed off passengers.How does it normally work, is it cancelled full stop or will I likely fly tomorrow/Tuesday etc?
As they say on Big Bang, you are attached to another object by an inclined plane, wrapped helically around an axis.
i.e screwed.
Contact airline / travel agent.
Good luck, you'll need it.
F i F said:
At Arlanda we despatch these PSB machines Plough/Sweep/Blower see below, in echelons of eight at a time, followed by a snowblower followed by a formiate truck spraying anti-skid formula. Followed by a skid tester.
That's great. We don't have the same kind of snow, sadly. Good luck trying to use a snow blower at Heathrow.Magic919 said:
F i F said:
At Arlanda we despatch these PSB machines Plough/Sweep/Blower see below, in echelons of eight at a time, followed by a snowblower followed by a formiate truck spraying anti-skid formula. Followed by a skid tester.
That's great. We don't have the same kind of snow, sadly. Good luck trying to use a snow blower at Heathrow.But shut for two days, after what? Four inches? Six tops.
matt21 said:
Well as suggested here looks like I will be going nowhere..at least I can watch the Apprentice final
How does it normally work, is it cancelled full stop or will I likely fly tomorrow/Tuesday etc?
As has been said - back of the queue which is a nightmare, especially if you're sat in a foreign airport as we were last year. How does it normally work, is it cancelled full stop or will I likely fly tomorrow/Tuesday etc?
Your options: See a rep in the airport - last year 6 hours wait, call the helpline - 3 hour wait or use the web (which was down due to unexpected demand).
Gotta love our British airlines (from which I exclude Virgin as they're much better in my experience).
Best bet is to attempt to reschedule using the web if you can or through a travel agent who may do the leg work for you.
edited to add: With the event of new methods of communication such as Twitter you can now also b
h at them in a variety of new ways. From reading them over the past few days they'll repeat what I've just said and probably apologise for your wait, inconvenience, lack of Christmas etc. No actual useful contribution though. Heathrow's Tweets about working through the night to make sure their customers could travel today were quite amusing. I'd already resigned myself to the fact it was never going to happen. Apparently, the low temperatures overnight (which had been forecast all day) were to blame...
Edited by _DeeJay_ on Sunday 19th December 11:39
F i F said:
Magic919 said:
F i F said:
At Arlanda we despatch these PSB machines Plough/Sweep/Blower see below, in echelons of eight at a time, followed by a snowblower followed by a formiate truck spraying anti-skid formula. Followed by a skid tester.
That's great. We don't have the same kind of snow, sadly. Good luck trying to use a snow blower at Heathrow.But shut for two days, after what? Four inches? Six tops.
tty slushy snow that freezes to everything and other countries get powder snow which is so much easier to deal with and doesnt cause the same delays.Du1point8 said:
F i F said:
Magic919 said:
F i F said:
At Arlanda we despatch these PSB machines Plough/Sweep/Blower see below, in echelons of eight at a time, followed by a snowblower followed by a formiate truck spraying anti-skid formula. Followed by a skid tester.
That's great. We don't have the same kind of snow, sadly. Good luck trying to use a snow blower at Heathrow.But shut for two days, after what? Four inches? Six tops.
tty slushy snow that freezes to everything and other countries get powder snow which is so much easier to deal with and doesnt cause the same delays.tty slushy snow at beginning and end of the season. Of course they do.
Have seen LHR reduced to chaos by less than half inch of snow, and still in chaos even after all the snow has melted.
Two problems as I see it, Heathrow is at max capacity normally. Add a lot of snow (yesterday was about 6 inches in couple of hours) and this reduces to zero. That alone is enough to cause massive disruption and the only way to cope is to mass cancel until the airport can run to a fairly normal schedule again.
Second problem is de-icing, in BA's case planning application for a dedicated de-icing rig has been rejected again and again. All BA can do is use one dedicated departure stand to de-ice aircraft one at a time. This inevitably slows things down regardless of whether there is snow around or not.
Add to all that the constant stream of passengers turning up who have been told to stay away and an airport operator who seems to have no contingency plans other than to plough the runways clear and you have total chaos and a day or two's of disruption will now likely run until Christmas.
I really feel for people trying to get away and trying to get back into the UK via Heathrow but lets not kid ourselves that massive investment in snow clearing equipment would solve all the problems. The conservative government were strong to their pledge and cancelled any plans for expansion at Heathrow - this will mean things will not get better for years or even decades.
Second problem is de-icing, in BA's case planning application for a dedicated de-icing rig has been rejected again and again. All BA can do is use one dedicated departure stand to de-ice aircraft one at a time. This inevitably slows things down regardless of whether there is snow around or not.
Add to all that the constant stream of passengers turning up who have been told to stay away and an airport operator who seems to have no contingency plans other than to plough the runways clear and you have total chaos and a day or two's of disruption will now likely run until Christmas.
I really feel for people trying to get away and trying to get back into the UK via Heathrow but lets not kid ourselves that massive investment in snow clearing equipment would solve all the problems. The conservative government were strong to their pledge and cancelled any plans for expansion at Heathrow - this will mean things will not get better for years or even decades.
F i F said:
I'm sorry but this situation blows my mind, not the OP question as it's quite understandable under the circumstances and lack of information.
ffs BBC telling people to sign up to twitter in order to follow situation with airlines and airports.
How much money does Thiefrow take each year, even less than an inch of snow can reduce it to a shambles.
How much snow have the prats to deal with this time.
At Arlanda we despatch these PSB machines Plough/Sweep/Blower see below, in echelons of eight at a time, followed by a snowblower followed by a formiate truck spraying anti-skid formula. Followed by a skid tester.
A runways can be cleared in 6 to 10 minutes dependant upon rate of snowfall and which runway. Still get overwhelmed on some occasions as for each 2cm of snow that falls 1,200 of these have to be moved away.
OK it's not reasonable to expect Thiefrow to have this level of clearance but FFS what we are seeing now is 3rd world!!!!!!!!!
Arlanda takes pride in never closing due to snowfall, what they forget to mention is that although it remains "open" there are quite often horrendous delays due to snow clearing operations.ffs BBC telling people to sign up to twitter in order to follow situation with airlines and airports.
How much money does Thiefrow take each year, even less than an inch of snow can reduce it to a shambles.
How much snow have the prats to deal with this time.
At Arlanda we despatch these PSB machines Plough/Sweep/Blower see below, in echelons of eight at a time, followed by a snowblower followed by a formiate truck spraying anti-skid formula. Followed by a skid tester.
A runways can be cleared in 6 to 10 minutes dependant upon rate of snowfall and which runway. Still get overwhelmed on some occasions as for each 2cm of snow that falls 1,200 of these have to be moved away.
OK it's not reasonable to expect Thiefrow to have this level of clearance but FFS what we are seeing now is 3rd world!!!!!!!!!
Just can't beat good old mother nature sometimes.
F i F said:
OK it's not reasonable to expect Thiefrow to have this level of clearance but FFS what we are seeing now is 3rd world!!!!!!!!!
Why the hell not? It should in fact have THE BEST snow clearing equipment in Europe since it's the busiest airport and hence the richest airport in Europe (and maybe the world). There is no excuse except the total shambolic idiots called BAA. Gassing Station | Holidays & Travel | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff