smckay

Met office have upgrade the warning to Amber for the SE now; LGW rather than LHR is under the amber spot, but its clear that there will be some disruption at both IMO

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather...6-760ccd42761d

T8191

Question ... would westbound just use a more southerly TATL route under these circumstances?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Tracks

Globaliser

I suppose there's also real possibility of ground holds on departure, then?

fransknorge

More northerly typically, those are the ones for today, westbound, tracks and they are going quite north to avoid the stream. :

But services to the east coast and mid west can not avoid it completely, see if you can spot when this service had to leave the tracks and enter the jet stream

editionsofyou

Call me chicken but I have taken the £35 x 2 admin hit to pull our rewards flight to ARN forward 24 hours to Saturday.
I am getting too old for the 319 rollercoaster.

ahmetdouas

Crosswind component not too bad? I guess we'll find out on Sunday.

GentleGiant

Flying to Miami Sunday afternoon.

On points in First, so fingers crossed.....

If there were available award seats we would fly earlier, but nothing available.

Not looking forward to it. Getting too old .

youngfogey

I’m flying on Sunday and was wondering about loading bags. I guess if it’s a bit blowy they can’t load luggage sometimes? It’s not the end of the world but a bit awkward.

if I’m taking an onward flight on non BA metal would BA still get my bags to my final destination?

corporate-wage-slave

Just working through the details but this is an advisory out on Storm Ciara.

Big news: they have already decided that Flow Forward will be in operations at LHR and perhaps LGW. The grizzled vets of this forum will know that his means they've unlocked bits of FLY to allow people to travel on earlier flights without charge. This is best done at the airport, but GGLs, Prems and First travellers may be able to get it via their contact centre numbers tomorrow (speculation, please don't demand it).

Another CWS update coming shortly.

GentleGiant

Thanks for the update.

Whether there are two first seats to Miami tomorrow is another matter.....

We are at Heathrow, so can just fly.....

corporate-wage-slave

Update on the key bits to Storm Ciara. Currently there is no customer guideline allowing rebooking to other days. My hunch is that one is coming:

- "Storm Ciara is set to bring strong winds, heavy rain and snow to the UK and Ireland"
- flow rate at HAL already cut the flow rate to 34 per hour from (I think) 60 an hour with effect of 06:40 hrs Sunday. So that suggests half of BA's services will be scrubbed (CWS speculation) and rather more than half of shorthaul and domestic in particular (speculation but always happens).
- there's a HAL Ops meeting at 11:00 hrs on Saturday - things will be clearer then
- after that meeting BA will assess the precise number of flights that need to be cut and emails / SMS will go out then. I'll try and get a list of this, my guess is we will see this about 14:00 hrs GMT or so.
- don't panic
- BA is preparing for major scale of irrops on Sunday and has got staff and contact centres on standby with pre-prepared processes in place, including Flow Forward
- disruption may be more awkward than usual (e.g. affecting catering, wheelchair access and other ground vehicle work)
- Think carefully about anything in checked luggage (keys, chargers, medicines), I think there is a higher chance than normal that there may be delayed baggage
- there remains some uncertainty on the specifics of the weather, in particular the impact on LGW is unclear (they are often better able to ride this sort of thing out).
- no reference to LCY but I would imagine a big hit there - luckily they only operate on Sunday afternoon but I don't think that's a complete answer.
- if your flight is delayed by more than 2 hours on flight status (BA.com/arrdep) for short haul or 5 hours for longhaul then you can call up to find replacement flights, ditto if you get told of a cancellation. Otherwise, and with the caveat from my previous post, I would NOT call the contact centres yet. I would expect Joint Business. switches to Iberia and Aer Lingus may be possible, maybe other options too. By all means reach out in this thread if you want some suggestions before calling.

Agneisse

Ugh...Flying to California mid-day on Sunday. Expecting an unpleasant ride.

wythy

The Airbus A320 has a 40kts operating limit and I've seen predicted mean windspeeds to be higher than that, so likely to cause operational issues on the ground.

snuffi

I am leaving for Madrid in about 11 hours time, due back late on Sunday evening. I've just packed an extra shirt and underwear, and I'll look up where my company's office is there. Just in case.

youngfogey

Thanks wythy, I think I will see if I can move to Monday afternoon if it comes to it.