Orange.Man

If they haven't seen the drone for X amount of time then they will reopen. Numerous times yesterday they went to reopen and the drone reappeared thus putting that plan to stop.

pred02

I am now on the DI7147 Norwegian from LGW-BOS scheduled for 16:50 today. The status says is on-time, however I am aware that the inbound flight from Boston did not arrive yesterday and tomorrow. How would I find out if the actual plane 787 will be available? I booked a backup flight tomorrow but I am going to cancel I have until 3pm today.

Thanks

corporate-wage-slave

Small update from BA, probably the most useful aspect is the confirmation that Update 6 of the Customer Guidelines is still valid.

jfallesen

The Platinum and British Airways Premium cards from American Express both include missed connections as part of the included travel insurance. The FlexAccount and FlexPlus accounts from Nationwide also cover missed connections in their included travel insurances.

I am sure there will be several others with similar cover so definitely worth anyone affected to check their policy.

Tafflyer

simons1

No more than you would get for a £200 economy flight. Which in this case is nothing.

WorldLux

Well, those birds can do quite a bit of damage too. On top of that, birds don't tend to have lithium batteries in them. I don't want to know what happens if a lithium battery ends up shredded in the engine. There are a couple of videos on the internet showing the damage caused by drones, including smaller drones taking out a 737 winglet.

tinkicker

I'm sure someone with the exact / more recent numbers will come along but from memory 55 ish movements an hour is somewhere around the theoretical max with about 40 ish an hour the 'best' average over a day. I saw a graph once that showed something like once you go over about 50 an hour the delays get much worse due to ground congestion, taxiway infrastructure etc etc.

Sorry just edit to say the 10 flow rate is probably arrivals only and the numbers I have given are arrivals and departures.

DaveS

Indeed, the engine will be destroyed by the bird tests, but the main thing is the damage is contained. I would imagine the results with a drone would be similar.

TimDP

tinkicker

The most frequently posted 737 winglet video has been widely discredited. At the moment there are only two definite drone - aircraft collisions (one in Canada resulting in a dent in the wing and one in the US involving a military helicopter) both landed safely. There is one suspected one from the other week in Mexico, I say suspected as no evidence of a drone has yet been reported and we've seen damage like that from manufacturing defects, unreported ground damage and other causes. (there was also a recent UK light aircraft versus model glider but for reasons I don't fully understand that doesn't seem to have been counted as a "drone").

However, the point is we really don't know what the likely outcome will be there are too many variables to easily make predictions. There are some theoretical models, there has been some "testing" showing alarming damage but much of that is disputed due to the methodologies used. The most formal "guess' from the FAA is that a hobby drone would do damage but it would be unlikely to be catastrophic but testing is limited. Birds themselves vary massively and the tests done on engines use a standardised format based on some risk probability calculations which of course can be exceeded in the real world.

So we are slightly in the same territory as volcanic ash , we know the outcome is bad, but we don't know if its bad as in immediately fatal for everyone, bad as in it's going to cost a lot of money to fix or bad as in a bit of paperwork. We're left with a solution of not hitting the drone and the method of achieving that is segregation which currently only works as long as people follow the rules. Clearly we're outside that with Gatwick this week.

bogof

On BBC Breakfast this morning, the reporter their said NO compensation is payable as this is an extraordinary event.

tinkicker

If you are stuck in Madrid and want to be in the UK and can get to the airport NOW then consider calling Synergy Aviation. They just tweeted this... I have no connection with the company, just saw it on Twitter.

GodAtum

That's unfortunate ... a lot of money down the drain.

spellinn

There's a fair amount of traffic stacking up above East Sussex this morning..I'm guessing they are taking a cautious approach to see if any reappearances of the drone with lots of aircraft in holding waiting for landing slots.


Circles in the sky