Weather Disruption at Heathrow - 27 July 2018
Jul 27, 2018, 3:50 pm
#62
Join Date: May 2014
Location: London
Programs: BA Gold
Posts: 278
LCY has been impacted (well flights to GLA anyway). My daughter was on the 18.15 which got cancelled, she needed to get to GLA tonight but there was no room on the next flight 19(something), had the choice of 21.00, 21.15 or 21.30. She went for the 21.00 (which was delayed until 21.45 or so), the 21.15 was delayed until 10.10 and the 21.30 was cancelled in the end!
Jul 27, 2018, 4:18 pm
#64
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: London
Programs: BA - Gold for Life, CCR & GGL; IC Spire Elite Ambassador; Diamond Hilton Honors; Hyatt Discoverist
Posts: 6,720
Jul 27, 2018, 4:35 pm
#66
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 44
Days like today are challenging...
Due to the weather around the southern part of the UK, pretty much every departure route out of, and into Heathrow was affected/restricted this afternoon. Normally, departures on the same initial routing are required to be 2 minutes apart in the main. For varying periods and times all the routes were temporarily 3/4/5/6/8/10 minutes, and this was an ever changing situation as the weather developed and moved. As the day evolved the hardest hit route was the North Easterly departure which overflies Brookmans Park in Hertfordshire. Pretty much all flights to Scandinavia/Northern Europe/Russia and the Northern half of Asia take this route on departure. Today the route was unavailable due to the weather for long periods of time, as whenever we tried to depart a flight on that route they could not stay close to the prescribed route and thus further departures were not allowed. To put this into perspective, one Finnair outbound to Helsinki ended up overflying Manchester due to weather avoiding...
The problem then is expectation management and having 30-50 aircraft waiting (patiently in the main) to depart, but you literally cannot tell how long it might be. At one point we were departing on that route 1 every 5 minutes, or 40% of normal capacity. There were approx 30 aircraft in the queue for that route, so as unfortunate as it was, I could tell the last one waiting it was - at that point - 2.5hrs before they would go. Then someone went off track and for the safety of the sector departures were required to be 10 minutes apart - making the delay upto 5 hrs. Then the situation improved after to 1 every 4 minutes, and thus down to 2 hours again.
This may seem illogical or any other kind of negative. But with an ever changing weather situation it's so hard to get predictability for 5 minutes, let alone 2 hours. We genuinely try to be as efficient as we can as much as we can - days like today you simply cannot do that in the air.
I did tell some pilots that I didn't have any idea how long the delay would be - in fact the BA798 to HEL was one of those. I probably said similar to BA870 to BUD. I tried to give as much info to the crews to pass on to anyone who was waiting to go somewhere - even when they had an unpleasant length of delay.
If you were affected by todays weather, I apologise for something outwith my control. But rest assured our first (as always) priority was getting people to their destination safely, and where we could do that expeditiously, then today that was a bonus. Hopefully any delay or cancellation has not caused anyone to miss a truly important event.
Due to the weather around the southern part of the UK, pretty much every departure route out of, and into Heathrow was affected/restricted this afternoon. Normally, departures on the same initial routing are required to be 2 minutes apart in the main. For varying periods and times all the routes were temporarily 3/4/5/6/8/10 minutes, and this was an ever changing situation as the weather developed and moved. As the day evolved the hardest hit route was the North Easterly departure which overflies Brookmans Park in Hertfordshire. Pretty much all flights to Scandinavia/Northern Europe/Russia and the Northern half of Asia take this route on departure. Today the route was unavailable due to the weather for long periods of time, as whenever we tried to depart a flight on that route they could not stay close to the prescribed route and thus further departures were not allowed. To put this into perspective, one Finnair outbound to Helsinki ended up overflying Manchester due to weather avoiding...
The problem then is expectation management and having 30-50 aircraft waiting (patiently in the main) to depart, but you literally cannot tell how long it might be. At one point we were departing on that route 1 every 5 minutes, or 40% of normal capacity. There were approx 30 aircraft in the queue for that route, so as unfortunate as it was, I could tell the last one waiting it was - at that point - 2.5hrs before they would go. Then someone went off track and for the safety of the sector departures were required to be 10 minutes apart - making the delay upto 5 hrs. Then the situation improved after to 1 every 4 minutes, and thus down to 2 hours again.
This may seem illogical or any other kind of negative. But with an ever changing weather situation it's so hard to get predictability for 5 minutes, let alone 2 hours. We genuinely try to be as efficient as we can as much as we can - days like today you simply cannot do that in the air.
I did tell some pilots that I didn't have any idea how long the delay would be - in fact the BA798 to HEL was one of those. I probably said similar to BA870 to BUD. I tried to give as much info to the crews to pass on to anyone who was waiting to go somewhere - even when they had an unpleasant length of delay.
If you were affected by todays weather, I apologise for something outwith my control. But rest assured our first (as always) priority was getting people to their destination safely, and where we could do that expeditiously, then today that was a bonus. Hopefully any delay or cancellation has not caused anyone to miss a truly important event.
Jul 27, 2018, 5:10 pm
#68
Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: London
Programs: BA Gold
Posts: 81
So after 10 hours in the lounge, the inbound flight from LHR arrived into AMS after midnight.....then they cancelled it. We were told there was nobody to help. Couldn’t rebook. Have to find own hotels and claim back later. Went to nearest hotels, no availability, so now sitting on a seat, not sure if I can sleep and will have to wait until 6:00am to see if I can get a flight out on Saturday at all.
App is showing no availability. Earlier AMS-LGW had boarded and then didn’t take off as crew ran out of time. Spoke to a passenger on that flight and they had been rebooked at 2:00pm, so maybe not much chance for LHR.
I’m just wondering if the late LHR that didn’t go back would be an additional plane tomorrow that could take us or would it act as the first scheduled flight?
App is showing no availability. Earlier AMS-LGW had boarded and then didn’t take off as crew ran out of time. Spoke to a passenger on that flight and they had been rebooked at 2:00pm, so maybe not much chance for LHR.
I’m just wondering if the late LHR that didn’t go back would be an additional plane tomorrow that could take us or would it act as the first scheduled flight?
Jul 27, 2018, 5:26 pm
#70
Join Date: Feb 2017
Location: Glasgow
Posts: 131
Jul 27, 2018, 5:27 pm
#71
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: London, Strathaven
Programs: BA (Gold). Various other statuses
Posts: 1,468
Tonight we were on the 988 to Berlin. The captain was giving us information that contradicted the app so we weren’t sure who to believe. They eventually managed to get eat a “water pack” brought to the plane so we could have liquids. After two hours on the tarmac the flight was cancelled. We then got a text advising that they had rebooked us on the 08:45 flight on Sunday morning to Berlin arriving at 11:35. Our return flight is the same day at 16:45. Needless to say, we just got a taxi home. Will sort out the cancellations and insurance claim in the morning.
Jul 27, 2018, 5:59 pm
#72
Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: London
Programs: BA Gold
Posts: 81
Jul 27, 2018, 6:05 pm
#73
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: LON
Programs: BA Gold; LH FTL; IHG Diamond; Marriott Gold; ALL Gold
Posts: 1,758