ballogie

anyone at BA/LHR has checked the weather forecast for next week? Or will it just be a big surprise again?

https://www.netweather.tv/weather-fo...ives-next-week

I've actually bought 4 additional Easyjet tickets over and above the 4 we already hold on BA, as an insurance policy, for fear BA go into their usual meltdown

Waterhorse

FlyerTalker39574

You know that bit ‘reasonable measures’? It’s ignored.

gms

Yep. And then when people moan about it here we will get the usual posts from others telling us that it is impossible for BA to operate anywhere near capacity after a bit of frost or a few snowflakes have fallen.

It's only impossible because BA doesn't plan, invest and prepare sufficiently for such events. Having been involved in December's snowmageddon event (remind me, was it 4 or 5 snowflakes that fell that day ). I'm not suggesting that proper snow won't cause any disruption, but a bit of frost and a few snowflakes should at worst cause minor problems.

adrianlondon

If I was still silver instead of having recently dropped to bronze, I'd book a cheap flight on the coldest predicted day and hope for a two-year "apology extension" to my status as my flight was cancelled.

All She Wrote

There's nothing an airline can do about slot restrictions imposed due to weather

Airprox

Not this again.

Again, nothing to do with "slots". BA chooses not to provide enough de-icing capability.

HAL are to blame if they do not clear the manoeuvring area of contamination, but they have bought a huge amount of clearing equipment in the last 5 years or so. It's rare that it snows heavily and consistently enough in the UK that they cannot keep up, although this used to be a big problem in the past.

NATS generally have no need to implement any ATFCM measures during snow as the departure rate available is much higher than the demand from the operators, and the arrival rate is usually only affected by low visibility and again even during snow is usually higher than demand. ATFCM delays generally only cause any real issues when Heathrow is operating all flights, which doesn't happen during snow, there are always a few operators that cancel a few flights.

So in short, during most snow days at LHR, except during the absolute heaviest snow, the airport can provide sufficient capacity to run BAs operation. What slows things down is de-icing. Every airline arranges their de-icing, mostly done by their handling agent. At LHR BA does it all themselves, they de-ice their own aircraft and do all their own ground handling. HAL and NATS have developed areas and procedures for de-icing both on-stand and remotely. All BA has to do is provide the staff and the de-icing equipment. They have made the commercial decision to only provide a fraction of the de-ice capability they would require to run their entire operation.

All She Wrote

Delays caused by lack of ground facilities result in delayed departures, which result in...you guessed it, slots.

You might has mis-interpreted my original post, I'm not talking about wave 1 European, I'm talking about operations throughout the day. Wave 1 flights tend to get delayed rather than cancelled in these scenarios, it's the inbound planes that suffer the most. I'm well aware of how de-icing procedures work and agree with you that BA go about it in a strange way.....

Airprox

Well you might be guessing, but your guess is not relevant to the context of BA provision of de-icing capability. A flight is not necessarily any more likely to receive a CTOT for downstream reasons whether it operates on time or is delayed. Departure airport capacity restrictions do not generally cause CTOTs.

All She Wrote

It can cause CTOTs for inbound Aircraft prior to departure, quite common for EU flights actually, had it many times myself. Not really guessing I'm afraid!

ballogie

Snow for Friday week.....

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/ch...ype.png?cb=728

"Early guidance forewarning of next weeks weather was issued earlier on, and this has been further enhanced with extended outlooks in bulletins. Public agencies and major private infrastructure will begin a daily briefing cycle as of tomorrow" Source: Met Office insider

HIDDY

.Why didn't you book Easyjet in the first place?

plunet

So based upon what happened on Monday 5th Feb when there was the last threat-of-a-snowflake-no-snow-fell-but-they-cancelled-a-load-of-flights event, they will cancel a random selection of flights the evening before, ask you to go to MMB, where it cheats you into thinking you can accept the automatic reassiged flight and/or make some changes that better suit you - but in reality you can't as it errors at the final stage of the process; you then try to call BA and don't get an answer within any reasonable length of time, and then a some random period of time later you get a text confirming your reassignment onto a completely different flight from the first one that was suggested but now you might have an hope that MMB will actually do something useful. Whether you will now get a seat on a flight that is vaguely useful to you or your travel plans will now be in vain is anyones guess.

FTers are never bitter or twisted, but we just tell it like it is...

All She Wrote

Quite often when there's a threat of bad weather the airport authority will request it's operating airlines to reduce their schedule by a certain %. I'm not sure if this is what happened at Heathrow on this occasion but it fits the book.

Airprox