Originally Posted by
HansGlijmans
I'm not entirely updated from the inside but I as far I know most countries do not allow commercial pax traffic anymore and have revoked KL's regular permits requiring special arrangements for diplomatic overflight - & landing clearances which need to be arranged in concert with local Dutch embassies which not seldom are issued very last minute. Also local curfews resulting in restrictions for e.g. crew and pax transport of staff going to/from airport can be reason of actual delayed departures.
Could be, but . . .
. . . this morning KL had
one single flight scheduled before 9 a.m., to Paris. Shouldn't be too challenging, one would think, yet it departed 1 hour and 17 minutes late. I can't imagine that had anything to do with curfews, revoked permits, landing clearances, crew transport, and certainly not the weather or ATC restrictions due to heavy traffic. The aircraft operating the flight had been sitting at Schiphol since last Friday, so that can't have been it either. Nor did it suddenly go tech, as the delay had already been put into the system at 4 a.m.
The next two flights, to Brussels and Billund, departed 17 and 55 minutes late respectively. Flights to München and Frankfurt also left half an hour late. Longhauls to JFK and Tokyo were delayed by 30 minutes and two hours, and tonight's flight to SIN has yet to depart, but is already showing a 60 minute delay.
For whatever reason, punctuality is not their strongest point at the moment.
Johan