LHR delays

[Adrian B]

Hi all,

Anyone know where I can get some 'useful' info re weather delays at LHR.

My relos wer due to arrive at heathrow from zurich with a 14 hour layover at LHR for a connecting Virgin Atlantic Flight. Their Zurich LHR flight was cancelled due to snow at LHR, but there is nothing on the BA sites, and VA dont know anything about the snow.

BAA site also has a basic warning, but nothing else

[Anthony J]

Egll 181058z 1812/1918 02010kt 9999 sct030 tempo 1812/1903 2500 -shsn bkn008 becmg 1821/1824 vrb05kt

[Matt D]

Not sure when the flight you mention was.

Last night 17/12 Luton and City closed due snow. Stansted took the load resulting up to 75mins of holding (they needed two stacks)

Heathrow had RVRs got down to 700m at times and with a gusting, snowy crosswind up to 24kts. With braking action reduced to Medium the gusty crosswind exceeded quite a few limits on the A320s. (In know Lufthansa only allows 15kt xwind in the A320 with medium braking action)

Gatwick didn't appear to have too many delays.

EGSS 172050Z 35021G38KT 2500 -SHSN FEW005 BKN009 M01/M01 Q1008 RESHSN
EGGW 172050Z 35020KT 2000 SHSN FEW006 SCT010 BKN019 M01/M02 Q1009
EGLL 172120Z 34013KT 2000 R09L/1500 -SHSN FEW007 SCT010 BKN016 M01/M02 Q1010
EGLC 172150Z 34017G28KT 320V020 6000 -SN FEW009 BKN012 BKN018 01/00 Q1008
EGLL 172150Z 34013G25KT 1500 R09L/0700 SN FEW007 SCT010 BKN016 M01/M02 Q1010

Any significant wx cleared mid morning Friday. I wouldn't expect any delays today.

The BAA site is the usual go to for me but it wont give you any info about what the airline is doing re rescheduling. I'd go to the airlines site.

Matt

[Matt D]

Delays all round in London again today with it looking equally ugly tomorrow

EGLL 052250Z 11008KT 1600 R09R/1400 -SN SCT004 OVC007 00/M00 Q0999 RESN
EGKK 052250Z VRB02KT 0600 R26L/1200 SN VV/// 00/M00 Q0999
EGGW 052250Z 10006KT 2000 SN SCT010 BKN017 M01/M01 Q0999 SNOCLO

EGLL TAF: 052300Z 0600/0706 11006KT 3000 -SN BKN012 TEMPO 0600/0619 0400 +SN BKN001 PROB40 0609/0621 7000 NSW BKN016

Most of the late night Heathrow departures for Aust departed approximately an hour late with the exception of QFA10 and BAW15 were held up by more than 90 mins. The delays were not due to rwy contamination or traffic. I expect it was a run on de-icing trucks

....and a short delay lined up for QFA10 due to a fox on the runway. Apparently it did pause at the holding point line for some time before dashing across (and unfortunately no, it wasn't taxiway FOXTROT :))

[Mike W]

Thanks Matt for converting this into English for the Laymen on this forum. You are obviously thoughtful as well as informed.

[Adrian B]

Looks like it is the season again....

Can somone post ATIS / NOTAMs for EGLL. We are getting conflicting info on QF30 departure from Saturday going today, but then the website at one point mentioned tomorrow.

I found something that mentioned limited departures from terminals 3 and 5.

[Matt D]

Very little moved at Heathrow after 9:30am yesterday when the downpour started. It will stay closed all day Sunday for arrivals with few departures planned.

Hundred slept in the airport last night

From the website:

Heathrow Airport will not be accepting arrivals on Sunday, and will only manage a handful of departures as our airfield team continues to deal with the impacts of yesterday's bad weather and prepares the airport for a full re-opening on Monday.

We are extremely sorry for the disruption this will cause to passengers and airlines and we stress that passengers must check with their airlines before travelling to the airport. We will provide regular updates.

We have 200 aircraft parking stands and have a team of several hundred people working to treat these airside areas and to keep passengers in the terminal as warm and as comfortable as possible while we do everything we can to get Heathrow moving.

We are removing 30 tonnes of snow from each stand, but the temperature remains firmly below zero and Heathrow's capacity is limited to the extent that all parking stands are occupied by aircraft, making the job of clearing and treating them more difficult.

A3732/10 NOTAMN
Q) EGTT/QFALT/IV/NBO/A /000/999/5129N00028W005
A) EGLL B) 1012190633 C) 1012192359
E) AD CLSD TO ALL ARRIVALS. NO DEPARTURES FROM TERMINALS 1 AND 4.
MINIMUM DEPARTURES FM TERMINALS 3 AND 5, ON PRIOR AGREEMENT WITH
AIRPORT OPERATOR
CREATED: 19 Dec 2010

-9 degrees and freezing fog forecast for Monday morning

Matt

[Adrian B]

Thanks Matt, It doesnt help whenQF staff say go home / away and look at the website, but the website says they will depart in a few hours...

In the words of Vivien from the Young Ones.."SNOW SNOW BLOODY SNOW"

[Matt D]

Eurocontrol (https://www.cfmu.eurocontrol.int/PUBPORTAL/gateway/spec/index.html)is showing numerous European airports closed or with significant delays.

There is an amazing amount of info available via links on this tactical page, from news, NOTAMs, Landing rates, delays, re-routing etc for the whole of Europe. For once the delays are attributed to Weather and Airport Capacity rather than French and Spanish ATC! :) If only we had similar data avilable in Aus.

[Ash W]

Not sure what is with these Pom's. The snow that fell was very minor, about 10cm in depth, yet it has closed the airport for the best part of two days and they have only been able to clear just 1 runway since the snow stop falling a good 36 hours ago. Incredible.

[Philip Argy]

Makes Sydney seem not too bad, although our delays of one hour at the moment are due to strong westerly winds rather than snow!

[Gerald A]

Very minor hey Ash, so minor Ash that it froze the aircraft on the tarmack, and most of the aircraft could not be moved at all.

[Ash W]

Gerald I live here (there) and yes the snow fall was indeed VERY minor. The fall the other day at 10cm was significantly less than the falls earlier in the year and about 1/4 of the fall in 2009. Neither of these crippled the airport for going on for 3 days.

I had lunch with some of my European (from Poland and Hungary) friends yesterday and we talked about this and they just think the UK is a laughing stock when it comes to weather problems. 10cm of snow and -4 temps do not stop airports in their countries for too long so why here? Yes I know that Heathrow wouldn't have the same amount of equipment as airports that get snow regularly and nor should they, but still it seems they didn't use what they did have properly.

[Sarah C]

Good luck to everyone travelling to/from Europe in the coming days.

And I love how the news today only reported Qantas resuming flights - so there are no other airlines that fly to the UK? What about BA, Virgin Atlantic, plus all the other carriers that fly there?

[Justin L]

And I love how the news today only reported Qantas resuming flights - so there are no other airlines that fly to the UK? What about BA, Virgin Atlantic, plus all the other carriers that fly there?

Perhaps as Qantas is the only Australian airline flying to Europe and therefore maybe the only airline issuing press releases to the Australian media from which many articles are written?

Even if other airlines' information was available to the media or via websites, except for passengers on other airlines, the general interest of the readers would essentially be on Australian matters I guess - hence the Qantas focus.

[James M Smith]

I think it is completely misplaced to attempt to compare Heathrow with airports in Poland and Hungary. I live here in London too, and have travelled through both Warsaw and Budapest airports.

The latter does not even have an airline based there with any widebody aircraft, nor does it have as many gates or parking stands as Heathrow does. Both of these airports also have a fraction of the traffic flowing through them.

Also, other airports in Europe have also suffered a lot of disruption and these are in places which see more regular snowfalls than London - Paris, Munich, Frankfurt and Amsterdam have all been chaotic in recent days.

I do agree that the authorities here have not handled the situation well, nor have they properly explained their actions (or lack of). Their planning for this type of event really needs to improve.

Your Polish and Hungarian friends might think the UK is a laughing stock, but if I had a choice, I know where I would rather live and if your friends live here, perhaps they think the same?

[Ash W]

My friends do live here hence why they can compare. Now whilst it is true Budapest and Warsaw do not have the capacity of Heathrow, they do, despite their small size have the capability to clear and cope with far greater amounts of snow or poor weather. Yes they are in countries where this happens all the time, but then again the UK is a modern country where this kind of thing does happen and they should have plans in place to better manage these incidents, emphasis on the word manage. The other thing that surprises me is why in the past has the road network been crippled, yet this time around the road network is doing much better, but Heathrow much worse. Someone at Heathrow really needs to be providing some answers.

But your right the real problem is the manner in which Heathrow in particular has handled this event. Their story has changed from day to day and to be honest I cannot see why it is taking them so long. They have 1 runway cleared, which going by the pictures I saw on the news was cleared on Saturday afternoon. What has happened to the other runway.

Also on Saturday the Heathrow rep was saying the reason for the closure was fear of aircraft skidding off the runway so the closure was safety related. All the while some aircraft were taking off. Now if that was really the concern then why were aircraft taking off? Now I just saw the boss of Heathrow saying the story is too many aircraft are snowed in and cannot be moved. This I do believe, but what are they doing about it and why is it taking so long?

Now call my cynical but on Saturday the rep was saying Heathrow couldn't cope because it only had 2 runways and tonight the CEO is saying their stands are too highly utilised to clear them. Could it be that Heathrow is holding passengers to ransom and are using this event to further their (quite justified) campaign for more runways and terminals. Hmmmmm, food for thought.

[Adrian B]

My family is now on a flight out after 4 days of delays, and $9k out of pocket. Seems QF are happy to assist if you are in Business or first.....

Weather is weather, I have no issue with that, but having spoken to QF both in OZ and UK, they have little clue, their directions, whilst friendly, understanding and polite have been completely misguided, late, slow and let down by their internal systems. It is very clear that the call centre staff have not been given the information they need to assist passengers, despite their scripts advising them to follow procedure.

[Peter Agatsiotis]

A live cross to Heathrow on Sunrise announced 2nd runway now open so things will improve.

At the moment QF2(OJH) and QF32(OQD) are on approach and both Virgin Atlantic and BA15 have made it in.

Noticed last night that QF002D(OJS) arrived very late and just made curfew.

[Tim Bowrey]

Noticed last night that QF002D(OJS) arrived very late and just made curfew.

He landed on 07 about 6mins before curfew Peter. Just!

[Peter Agatsiotis]

Thanks Tim

I wonder if they would have let him land regardless? (Surely dispensation and logic would say yes!)

Imagine these poor souls having endured hell at Heathrow then told they were diverting to MEL or BNE! A few choice words at the cabin crew for sure (even though not their fault).

[Peter Agatsiotis]

Forgot to mention that included in the TV cross, the reporter mentioned that the British PM had offered defence resources to help clear the snow and the airport authorities declined the offer!

An earlier news report also highlighted the point that unlike roads, you can't just push the snow to one side. It has to be taken away and dumped.
Most of you would have seen the footage of a Virgin Atlantic A340 stuck on a taxiway and it took 5 hours to get the passengers off-loaded!