Chaos as dust chokes Sydney Airport

[gilby08]

Passenger chaos as dust chokes Sydney Airport

A dust storm blanketing Sydney is causing mayhem for airline passengers, with flights into and out of the capital delayed and diverted.
All domestic flights on the busy Melbourne-Sydney route are experiencing delays this morning while at least four international flights into the harbour city have been diverted to Brisbane.
International Qantas and Singapore departures from Sydney have been delayed.
Winds up to 100 km/h are also expected to hit Sydney later this morning.
Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway said Sydney Airport has been reduced to one runway this morning.

Mr Westaway said wind gusts upwards of 80 km/h had also been recorded at Mascot, with thick dust reducing visibility.
‘‘Our operations are being faced with traffic holding of at least an hour and that should occur to at least this afternoon,’’ he said.
"All our services in and out of Sydney are flying except one. We cancelled a single Sydney-Avalon return service to ease pressure on our Sydney operations, but all passengers were moved on to other Jetstar or Qantas services.
‘‘We’re focused on getting our passengers in and out of Sydney but there are some significant difficulties this morning.’’
The thick red dust has blown in from central Australia and western New South Wales and visibility is reported to be down to just 10 metres at Broken Hill.
A Melbourne Airport spokeswoman said the disruptions would continue as long as the dust storm affected Sydney.
Passengers are urged to contact their airlines for flight information.
A Singapore Airlines spokeswoman said flight SQ221, a Boeing A380 due to fly to Sydney from Melbourne before continuing to Singapore, has been delayed indefinitely. She said Sydney Airport was likely to suffer delays all day.
More to come
- with AAP

[Nigelinoz]

I have to admit that whilst the dust storm and delays to passengers are very unfortunate the line about the "Boeing A380" made me laugh.

[haydensydney]

Its absolutely ferrel here in Sydney today... has anyone been flying in this weather today? Bumpy?

[Binxx]

Just curious as to what happens to SC's and points for rescheduled flights and how valuable insurance policy in cases like this.

Some friends were booked on CX to Hong Kong this morning. I assume they would be getting Qantas SC's and points for this flight being Qantas FF's?

The Flight got cancelled and they were put on a 2pm Virgin Atlantic flight to Hong Kong.

[samh004]

I realise dust could be harmful to the planes moving parts, but why is the A380 grounded? Is it particularly sensitive to dust?

[gilby08]

I realise dust could be harmful to the planes moving parts, but why is the A380 grounded? Is it particularly sensitive to dust?

And why would it be going via MEL for that matter, meaning the SQ flight?? I never thought SQ did this as they have direct flight out of those ports?

[gilby08]

I have to admit that whilst the dust storm and delays to passengers are very unfortunate .

I'm very suprised that the people on the "news" websites (comments, reporters) haven't started blaming the airlines yet for this "tragic event", especially the QF group!

[Joshua]

Not travelling today fortunately. Sitting in Brisbane, it's starting to pick up here too so will further complicate it all.

Interesting to see the new QF site's pop-up for significant disruptions. Good day not to be passing through Sydney Airport.

[Keith009]

Phew... luckily I did my squiggle run yesterday rather than today.

[samh004]

Phew... luckily I did my squiggle run yesterday rather than today.

Yes, you were very lucky with that. Would have got some nice photos though.