Heathrow currently closed

[flychrisfly]

Not a great time to be travelling with 7 aircraft now at least 24 hours delayed, with the three on the ground at LHR stuck, OJT at FRA and now the out bound flights have been held at SIN and BKK, interesting that QF9 repositioned to BKK ex SIN.

The timetable on qantas.com still shows QF31 as an A380 for the rest of this week. I'm flying on the 23rd (Thursday) from SYD-LHR and then onto Dublin, so transiting in LHR on 24th. The forecast for London for then is Drizzle, Min: 1°C Max: 2°. But prior to this 2 days of snow are forecast...

If we do divert and it is to FRA then Aer Lingus have a morning and an evening flight that will hopefully work. Dublin airport seems to be open...

I'm sneaking to Ireland to surprise my family for Christmas plus I'm hoping that by the end of this year I will have travelled in all 4 classes on the A380, but it's all weather permitting right now!

 

[Flashback]

It's much better today, but the tube was utterly useless yesterday. It took me 30 minutes to travel one stop yesterday (thankfully I didn't need to go any further). Buses are much better today and are generally on time.

You must be a little further out, I've had no issues with the tube in zone 1

 

[markis10]

The timetable on qantas.com still shows QF31 as an A380 for the rest of this week. I'm flying on the 23rd (Thursday) from SYD-LHR and then onto Dublin, so transiting in LHR on 24th. The forecast for London for then is Drizzle, Min: 1°C Max: 2°. But prior to this 2 days of snow are forecast...

QFs A380 was one of the few departures so that will help, they also have a few spares available to fill capacity gaps at present on that route.

 

[tuppaware]

I'm stuck in Bangkok without a firm time to leave atm.
Flights here include BA10 , QF01 (I think) and another QF flight that diverted from HKK on friday.

QF is starting to flyout from BKK. BA is hopeless to provide ANY information

 

[Philbyau]

Well We finally made it to London last night, it only took us 48 hours from Hong Kong, the Eurostar finally crawled out of Brussels at 9pm and arrived in London 3.5 hours later, then the taxi queue was a nightmare at St Pancras and took about 40mins to get to the front of the line.

I will say it again for nonews benifit and not for brownie points, although QF ultimately could't get us to our final destination, they really went out of their way to make sure that all paxs had a place to stay, food to eat and Internet/phone options to call family. I met a lot of passengers from other airlines on my trip with horror stories of being forced to sleep at FRA airport, more than 1000 people joined them there. The weather was out of QFs control but you really felt looked after, the reason I will always choose to fly with them.

I'm not sure how the other passengers faired as QF 29 was officially cancelled yesterday. The Eurostar desk said there wasn't any tickets available until Tuesday, let's hope LHR opens soon.

Does anybody know what will happen to the 747 in FRA?

 

[markis10]

Does anybody know what will happen to the 747 in FRA?

I would imagine they will try to get to LHR to drop off pax and pick up those stranded, interestingly QF have put their new A380 into service today to LHR as QF31.

 

[Flashback]

Well We finally made it to London last night, it only took us 48 hours from Hong Kong, the Eurostar finally crawled out of Brussels at 9pm and arrived in London 3.5 hours later, then the taxi queue was a nightmare at St Pancras and took about 40mins to get to the front of the line.

I will say it again for nonews benifit and not for brownie points, although QF ultimately could't get us to our final destination, they really went out of their way to make sure that all paxs had a place to stay, food to eat and Internet/phone options to call family. I met a lot of passengers from other airlines on my trip with horror stories of being forced to sleep at FRA airport, more than 1000 people joined them there. The weather was out of QFs control but you really felt looked after, the reason I will always choose to fly with them.

I'm not sure how the other passengers faired as QF 29 was officially cancelled yesterday. The Eurostar desk said there wasn't any tickets available until Tuesday, let's hope LHR opens soon.

Does anybody know what will happen to the 747 in FRA?

Unlike my friend who is heading home for Christmas on FR, her only option was to sleep at the airport once her flight was cancelled. Unfortunately FR is the only airline that flies to where she needs to go

 

[Sprucegoose]

I'm stuck in Bangkok without a firm time to leave atm.
Flights here include BA10 , QF01 (I think) and another QF flight that diverted from HKK on friday.

QF is starting to flyout from BKK. BA is hopeless to provide ANY information

Did you get accom?, something to water the horses with?

 

[Flashback]

Monday 20 December

Heathrow Airport will be open and operating a limited schedule of arrivals and departures today, but we expect further cancellations and delays in the coming days, as airlines move diverted aircraft and crew back to their normal positions and we continue to manage the impacts of the poor weather over the weekend and in the days ahead.
Please do not travel to the airport unless your airline has confirmed that your flight will be operating. If your flight status is shown as 'contact airline' on the live flight board below, your flight will not be operating today.

14:00 update: Terminals 1 and 3

There are continuing freezing conditions at Heathrow and it is currently snowing. Terminals 1 and 3 are extremely congested and we are unable to accept any more passengers coming to these terminals. We are therefore asking passengers not to travel to Heathrow Terminals 1 and 3 until further notice. We will review this at 16.00.
We will provide regular updates on this site and you can also keep up to date by following us on Twitter.

 

[elbarto]

You must be a little further out, I've had no issues with the tube in zone 1

Yeah I'm way out in Zone 5, almost on top of LHR.

 

[anat0l]

Some of the stories related to the snow delays are getting rather ridiculous. For example, references to "refugee camps":

Australiand, Kiwis stranded in Heathrow Airport | News.com.au

Couple of questions:

• Is there no practical way to operate planes safely during snow events? I guess there are too many variables which make it impossible to do so, e.g. deicing planes, "deicing" runways (they don't - assumed too expensive), visibility...
• All carriers leaving the UK need to adhere to EU regulations for duty of care, right? Which means provisions of accommodation and food, plus options to reroute or cancel. If all the hotels are booked out, how can an airline fulfil their obligations to duty of care?
  I assume it would still be extraordinarily difficult to book out every hotel in London, although some may not like where they're being put up. I also assume handing out foil or tarps is not a fulfilment of obligation.

 

[NM]

Is there no practical way to operate planes safely during snow events? I guess there are too many variables which make it impossible to do so, e.g. deicing planes, "deicing" runways (they don't - assumed too expensive), visibility...

Such conditions are not common in the UK so the airports are not set up to cope with them. They have very limited de-icing facilities and few snow ploughs.

Compare the facilities with places that get large amounts of snow and ice, such as Chicago, New York, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Helsinki and many other places in northern Europe or Russia. Those places operate ok with snow and ice. The investment is significant and well justified when its needed for months at a time. But in the UK, snow generally only causes minimal disruptions and the investment in the facilities to cope with it just isn't there.

I guess the bean counters at British Airports Authority must have too much faith in the theory of global warming to warrant investment in facilities to operate in snow/ice conditions.

 

[anat0l]

Such conditions are not common in the UK so the airports are not set up to cope with them. They have very limited de-icing facilities and few snow ploughs.

Compare the facilities with places that get large amounts of snow and ice, such as Chicago, New York, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Helsinki and many other places in northern Europe or Russia. Those places operate ok with snow and ice. The investment is significant and well justified when its needed for months at a time. But in the UK, snow generally only causes minimal disruptions and the investment in the facilities to cope with it just isn't there.

I guess the bean counters at British Airports Authority must have too much faith in the theory of global warming to warrant investment in facilities to operate in snow/ice conditions.

In number of incident terms perhaps that's what you mean by minimal. No one could argue that the disruption caused right now by the snow (and last year) is, by measure of extent, minimal!

I think it's possibly a lot more of a risk mitigation thing. The probability is near certain and the consequences are very high. To spin it a bit, when something like this happens, BAA doesn't really feel much pinch other than more than an encroachment on their facilities. It is the airlines who have to foot most of the bill of accommodating passengers. BAA doesn't need to give one cent in that regard and essentially suffer nil loss from this incident. So maybe that's how they look at it, hence nil investment.

 

[NM]

In number of incident terms perhaps that's what you mean by minimal. No one could argue that the disruption caused right now by the snow (and last year) is, by measure of extent, minimal!

Historically (over the last 10-20 years), the probability and impact have both been low. This year's event is certainly much higher impact that has historically been the case.

Now if only the very high taxes/charges imposed on UK departing passengers was funnelled back into an investment in airport facilities to cope with extreme weather events such as has occurred this week.

 

[rory breaker]

I'm traveling SYD to LHR on Friday this week, have no idea what to expect from Qantas....

I see the BA website has more info on Qantas flights than the Qantas website....

 

[Flashback]

This is the 3rd year running now that there's been "early snow" / "freak storms", so there's talk of a little more investment being made in snowploughs and such. I remain skeptical but we'll see

 

[Andyzx]

Its about time QF got a second entry / exit point for the UK:evil:. I note that Manchester is up and running and they can take A380’s (Emirates is going to use them). It’s easy to get in and out via car and there are trains to London and the rest of the UK.

Even better if they went to Robin Hood airport in Doncaster, longest runway in the UK (care of RAF Finningly), The Eagle and Child “free” pub is just down the road – brilliant little place. Likewise they have great rail north and south.

Yes I would have to miss out on the BA lounges but hey at least they are running and you might get home for Christmas :!: :arrow:

Merry Christmas everyone or at least happy holidays, be good, be safe, see you next year

 

[Blackadder]

It's not just a matter of looking for another place to land and saying okay we will land there.
I am sure if it was that simple QF would already be on to it.

 

[Sprucegoose]

I was on QF 29 tonight whaiuchg has been cancelled, got onto QF9, ug as well to J.

I am concerned that my connecting carrier is not OW and will charge me excess baggage something i would not have paid connectiing on a CX flight, we shall see.

I am told Customer Care will refund this more than likely?

Any experience in this dept peoples?

 

[Logan^]

Well I made it home on Monday afternoon I spent 36 Hours travelling which all in all I didnt think was to bad. I seriously think that I was very lucky to get into Heathrow on SQ322. When we left Singapore I saw 3 QF tails there and I know QF31 managed to get out of Heathrow, as mentioned earlier.

SQ allowed us to get something to eat from any of the food places in T3 just to show our boarding pass which I thought was very good of them especially as it is was a shortish delay.

Good luck to those of you travelling, my thoughts are with you as it is stressfull and hard going.