Fatdickie

Just following a flight on flight radar BA 2714 as a friend is on board.
Should be airborne
But just sitting there

Is there a way of telling if a flight has gone technical so I can warn the people who will be picking her up not to rush

Globaliser

EF says ETA 2114. Given the on-time push and where the aircraft is, one possibility is that it's a simple ground hold waiting for a takeoff slot time. Can you not reach your friend by phone?

Fatdickie

She's being good and phone is off 😁

Porky Speedpig

French ATC strike?

Airprox

French ATC is on strike, so they probably have a delayed take off time (CTOT) for en-route ATC delay.

Fatdickie

BA2798 also sitting there for 35 mins

Globaliser

Then maybe she's just enjoying the peace and quiet of not being contactable!

No change on EF.

corporate-wage-slave

This is one of those occasions when you need to infer a few things from BA status checker. So here is what it shows:



and you see a flight that "leaves" early and yet is nearly an hour late on arrival. And perhaps arrival time drifts out long and longer. For shorthaul this scenario generally means one of three things

- strong winds slowing down the flight - more for Greece, Poland, HEL and other long flights - and rarely more than about 30 minutes worth. Shorthaul timings mean that an ontime departure rarely exceeds scheduled time, there is a bit of padding in there.
- the aircraft closed up and is ready to leave but hasn't got a slot through the system yet. This is what has happened here, given the ATC strike, but just congestion of the airspace can do this too. This is the main reason.
- more rarely, the aircraft has actually landed somewhere but there isn't an available gate, or there is a strike at the arriving airport and it can't get to the point of disembarkation.

If a flight goes technical at departure then it would be unusual for this to show like this, there would usually be a return to gate or more likely it wouldn't have shown as departing at all.

Globaliser

FWIW, EF has now updated: the aircraft was airborne at 1659, and the current ETA is 2028.

This also underlines a piece of advice given to me a long time ago by some airline call centre agent when I was calling about a delayed flight: always ask if the aircraft is airborne, because ETA is much more reliable once it is.

Speedbird676

The flight had a constrained takeoff time from Eurocontrol of 1655, which meant it couldn’t take off before then.

It pushed at 1539 and was airborne at 1659. It likely went to a remote hold on the airfield in between.

Lynyrd

A lot of the LGW aircraft this morning pushed for a remote hold. The BA2712 was on time leaving stand but sat on 143 or similar for about 90 mins. Both Tenerife’s and the Algiers did the same. The Brest FIR was running at a 60 min delay. BA filed for the 2712 to go out on a SFD departure and then down through Paris towards VLC but in the end it took the normal SID out towards SAM and down the UN90/UN864 etc.

UUV was originally down to do the 2712 then the afternoon ALC but it was pulled off ALC and did the penultimate Jersey in an attempt to keep the ALC on time.

I haven’t been paying attention to the 2714 but imagine it’s in a similar boat.

Globaliser

To complete the story, ultimately it landed at 2023 and arrived at 2026.

Mountlodge

This evening and 1st Office + Cabin Crew confirmed it was French ATC. Got back to LGW about 40 minutes late.

MK