Why are planes still flying?
Discussion
As said most are cargo planes and I think the remaining passenger planes are probably just getting people home. I believe Emirates stopped all commercial flights today and they seemed to fly to and from everywhere all the time. My complete guess is in the next couple of weeks there'll be very few (if any) commercial flights.
I live under the flight path into Manchester, about 13 miles to the North East of the airport. With the weather being nice and sunny, it was easy to see and hear how busy the sky was. No where as near as normal. Most of those I observed coming into land were the biggies - a couple of Virgin 747s and the lunch time Emirates A380.
A lot of air freight goes in the holds of passenger aircraft, so I wonder if they can convert the upper seating levels into freight space if required?
A lot of air freight goes in the holds of passenger aircraft, so I wonder if they can convert the upper seating levels into freight space if required?
Edited by Emeye on Thursday 26th March 01:55
There are now more than likely 10s of thousands of people with the virus in the country. A few more getting of a plane now makes ball all of a difference.
It's like having one of your rooms in your house completely ablaze with fire and it's spreading. You fix the problem now with a big hose pipe not by shouting at someone falling asleep with a cigarette it to late for than.
It's like having one of your rooms in your house completely ablaze with fire and it's spreading. You fix the problem now with a big hose pipe not by shouting at someone falling asleep with a cigarette it to late for than.
If you check the major airports there are very few passenger flights in and out and these will reduce further over the next few days.
Ryanair said they are grounding all their fleet and most Easy Jet flights are cancelled, so it is mainly cargo from now on until the restrictions are lifted.
The skies will be deserted and pollution levels will continue to drop so we can all keep our ICE cars.
Ryanair said they are grounding all their fleet and most Easy Jet flights are cancelled, so it is mainly cargo from now on until the restrictions are lifted.
The skies will be deserted and pollution levels will continue to drop so we can all keep our ICE cars.
HertsBiker said:
If it's so serious, why? why not lockdown? if it's ok for planes, why so bad to go out? double standards?
They're not.In terms of directly comparable with the general don't travel unless you need to, the number of light aircraft in the sky above the UK today was about ten, half of which belong to the RAF.
On a nice sunny day in March after the winter we've had I'd expect to see more like 200.
A significant chunk of the commercial stuff moving about at the moment seems to be sorting out convenient long term storage and maintenance (or dismantling for parts/recycling) so towards the end of the week you'll see even less of that.
Have a look on planefinder, set it to this afternoon, then get it to show you the same time on the same day last week and you'll see just how little there is up there now.
Emeye said:
A lot of air freight goes in the holds of passenger aircraft, so I wonder if they can convert the upper seating levels into freight space if required?
Not really, there used to be Combi versions of Jets, 727 and 747 in particular that had easy conversion of part of the passenger cabin to freight, but they were never that popular of economically viable. I think KLM still fly 747 combi but not sure on that.There are plenty of little planes used for mixed cargo and passengers, but they tend to be small, in the remotes of remote places, where the pilot will unbolt a couple of rows of seats if they need to get an extra few goats in :P
Lots of old passenger jets become freighters, but that is at the end of their passenger service life.
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