Airports Across UK To Close?
 

Just heard a "breaking news" on Channel 7 saying all airports in the UK will close in 2 hours. Can anyone confirm this?

I think I've just answered my own question.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news...-1225854233663

I have only seen this at this point.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/bre...-1225854233663

What a mess?

Kind regards,

Geoff

An extract from British Airways notification received today 0845UTC :

From the BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8621407.stm

Kind regards,

Geoff

And from NATS http://www.nats.co.uk/:

The Ash is apparently up to 55,000 feet.

Hi All,

What impact will this have on QF Flights into / Out of LHR?

Will they divert to / operate out of Frankfurt?

Stuart

I am just looking at PlanePlotter over southern UK (12pm local) and there is only one a/c circling near London. Never seen this before.
From the PP forum looks like the ash system is moving south so flights in Northern UK and other parts of Europe have resumed or will be resuming shortly.

Flights that normally fly 'over' the UK will obviously be directed around the system. Will re-check the PP forum for the latest.

Latest is now no flights in UK airspace until at least 0700 BST on Friday.

At 2000 BST Thursday they will make a further announcement regarding arrangements through to 1300 BST Friday.

Yep - most northern countries have their airspace closed and Netherlands and Belgium are closing now. I believe the french ahve just announced Paris airports are also to close.

Check out http://www.flightradar24.com/ for a view of how few flights are flying!

Some are saying it could last a day or so more.

Very Very quiet over Europe now, at 437pm local time in London. Noticed BA flights are all cancelled, so you won't see any BA birds here on Saturday. Does that mean we will see double on Sunday?

Flight radar is struggling by the looks of it with the following message:

Casper is also looking very sad with no aircraft on it: http://casper.frontier.nl/eham/

Will be interesting to see how this is handled by all involved, and take a few days to catch up.

Looking across at the tarmac of Las Vegas airport from my office window this morning, the BA 777 which arrives and departs each evening here for LHR is moved back from the terminal at a stand-off bay (centre of attached photo). No doubt halted due to the closed air space.

Hi everybody. All UK airports will remain closed until 1300 Friday lunch time. Qantas did manage to get the QF32 and the QF30 out of Heathrow on Thursday by bringing the departure time forward by about an hour, departing just after 11AM local before Heathrow closed at mid-day. I understand that the Qantas flights due to arrive into Heathrow Friday morning are being held in either Singapore or Bangkok with revised arrival times of early evening, but of course that is subject to change as the situation is updated..

NATS have just announced that all UK airspace will remain closed until at least 1pm British summer time. (that's 26hrs and counting)

Amazing impact - mother nature has a lot of control over things, so it will be interesting how "clear" the skies get over the coming hours.

On the news this morning they had the usual whinging passengers, this time complaining about "we don't know whats happened". Every airline is trying to get information and get things organised as quickly as possible.

If you haven't got PlanePlotter installed, go to this site to see air traffic or the lack of air traffic over the UK. Reminders me of USA on 11 Sept 2001.

http://www.flightradar24.com/

Cheers,

Noel

The BA 777 in Las Vegas I mentioned in an earlier post has just returned to the terminal and is at the gate. Perhaps trans-Atlantic flights approaching from the west may resume soon as the cloud moves east?

Las Vegas airport website has a press release stating today's (Thursday's) BA flight to LHR and VS's flight to LGW as being cancelled (the incoming flights were both cancelled), but the BA flight currently at the terminal is really Wednesday's delayed flight.

Condor's flight from Las Vegas to Frankfurt is still scheduled to depart this afternoon.

Hi everyone,

This may be related, Qantas today has cancelled QF9 from MEL to SIN and LHR but QF29 is still scheduled to leave tonight.

Im not 100% sure if the cancellation of QF9 is related but it just may be.

All QF and BA flights to LHR and FRA have been cancelled for today

Also EK is not accepting any passengers on its network whose end destination is in Europe as well due to no more transit accommodation available in DXB for today as well.

More to follow I asume.

29 canx as well.

NATS have extended the closure of UK airspace until at least 16/4 1900 BST (34hrs and counting)

Just watching the SBS german news which showed a few European airports with all gates full.

In the segment it said that the last time this volcano erupted back in the 1820's it was belching out ash for 2 years!.

To make matters worst, passengers trying to get out of France by train can't because of a French Rail strike.

Looks like all the UK (and Frankfurt) bound flights from yesterday are still at their 'transit' points of Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong.

I noticed earlier that Virgin Atlantic had departed to HKG.

5pm statement from Qantas was that UK flights this weekend will probably be cancelled.

Also on PP now is QF31 heading to MEL (VH-OQC)?

QF5/9/29 have all been cancelled, and yesterday's QF1/5/9/29/31 are all stuck in BKK/SIN/HKG.

Today, QF31, VH-OQC is operating via MEL to SIN only.
QF1, VH-OJH is operating SYD to BKK only

What a clustermug!!

And now QF1 is airborne so a bit confusing as to why some flights are leaving and not others.

Neither of the BA flights have left (yet).

Latest report from PP is that some flights out of Scotland have departed as well as those from Wales and Ireland but limited number as ATC in different sections assess what flights can take place.

Current screenshot from Plane Plotter of Europe.

http://huppatz.com/Images/eurotraffic01-small.png
Click to enlarge.

I was on The Mound this afternoon and saw both BA aircraft on the stand-off bays and was surprised to see Virgin Atlantic had already left, and even more surprised to see QF1 depart at 1805...

On ABC news a Qantas spokesperson stated that they have despatched 2 a/c for Asia bound pax only. That explains QF1 to BKK and QF31 went to MEL to allow Asia bound pax from the 2 MEL flights to SIN.

He also said that they would be bringing back 2 a/c back from Asian ports.

A bit of activity over the UK/Ireland with 2 Aer Lingus A330's US bound and a couple of Thomsonfly a/c arriving at Glasgow and now Manchester.

I would think that maybe the BA pax in SYD went out on the QF flights, so no need to operate the BA aircraft.
But it would have been asian destination bound pax only.

Just got back from BNE with some family who were due to travel on EK433 to Dubai then EK009 to London Gatwick. We got to the airport, got told they weren't flying as Emirates have canned UK flights until the 19th.

They gave us the 1300 reservations number and said to call them to rebook flights.

A bit **** poor if you ask me. The chances of getting through on that number given the vast numbers of pax affected is ludicrously small...

NATS, the UK's equivalent to Air Services Australia, is the best place for updates on the UK airspace situation. http://www.nats.co.uk/index.html

Eurocontrol for mainland Europe: http://www.eurocontrol.int/corporate...news_list.html

KLM are worse. Am here in the Netherlands and their phone line says sorry - there is a disruption and we will no longer take calls. They have no staff at the airport ticket desks either.... When I called the US number to try and get rebooked I was told that they would not help and would terminate the call as I should call Netherlands instead....argh!:mad:

A friend of mine is in Barcelona right now, due to leave on SQ377 on Saturday. The opposite flight - SQ378 - is en-route (left an hour late), but stops at Milan on the way - and in the last 30 minutes Sky News is saying that Northern Italy is now closed - though Eurocontrol is silent on that at present, as is SQ.

Depending on how the day progresses, he might be looking at extending his stay in Spain.

Although not ideal circumstances- Wouldn't mind being stuck in Barcelona:) One of the most exceptional cities to visit in europe IMHO.

Hear hear!


I'd hate to begin to imagine the economic impact this airspace closure is having on the UK and the rest of Europe. Know a few people who are heading to the UK soon, and thought the British Airways strike was the thing to worry about!

As a spotter, I wouldn't mind being stuck in one of those busy European Airports with all the aircraft standing still!

Go to Mojave Desert if you want lots of aircraft standing still...

Now ENAC (Italian CAA) have closed Northern Italian Airspace up to 35000ft from 0800 to 1400 today - though given that is in the future who knows what might happen.

SQ378 is showing an ETA of 0728 in Milan - so if it gets in, it will no doubt stay there for a while.

Meanwhile, the Railways in affected areas are no doubt enjoying 100% occupancy as well as ferries to and from the UK.

Let's not forget the hotels! :D

Well, they got through finally to Emirates and have been told it will be May 1 *at the earliest* they fly back. But, that's only a guess as they can't actually book anything until Monday morning.

They were also told they could ring up every day and keep checking for a seat, but it could end up being later.

Makes it a nightmare for my nieces schooling and also the adults loss of work / money.

I checked Qantas' website this morning and they have heaps of info on what flights got cancelled etc. and it states they 'will try to contact all affected customers'. Emirates website on the other hand still doesn't show the flights as cancelled and we were allowed to check-in online for both sectors without any warning. Thankfully, I only live 20 minutes drive from BNE, but imagine the poor buggers who drove for an hour or two having checked out of a hotel...

Can't Emirates get them as far as somwhere like Athens or Vienna?

If so your family could hire a car or maybe take the train onwards from there.

Just a thought.

Anthony T