[pheighdough]

It’s looking likely that Storm Ciara will hit the UK on Sunday bringing very strong winds across the UK coupled with Thunderstorms and heavy rain. Once its passed through it them moves on to Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels.

I think we’ll see quite a bit of transport disruption on Sunday, road, rail and air. Keep safe everyone and don’t moan if you end up diverting to Cardiff if you were hoping to land at Heathrow.

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sparkyflier

[Gold-2K]

But it’s not all bad news:

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/storm-ciara-flight-record-new-york-london-time-atlantic-winds-british-airways-a9325396.html

[openfly]

It’s interesting that LGW has an almost normal operation in the high winds, but LHR has got multiple cancellations. Very few BA doms and AMS out of LHR, normal out of LGW! I wonder why?

[AlanOrton1]

I was chatting to the crew on my BA flight to JFK yesterday late afternoon and they mentioned during their pre-flight briefing they were told there could be some record quick times for flights flying US-UK on Sat night. The MIA route was supposed to be taking just over 6 hours back to LHR.
Interestingly that flight outbound late yesterday was still 7h30m LHR-NYC, though it took a very northerly route.

Looks pretty grim in the UK today, so hope all there stay safe.

Zero snow in NYC so far this winter, very unusual.

[capetonianm]

Very challenging conditions today at LHR, numerous missed approaches and diverts.

Live streaming here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gln7T-xxE4k probably best watched without sound due to the irritatingly puerile commentary. Some good video shots.

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mkcol74, Swissdiver, Poshgirl58

[MartynSinclair]

is this guy really standing outside in this weather filming every arrival.. wow..

[capetonianm]

Apparently he sets himself up in a caravan in the car park of one of the hotels on the north perimeter. It must be pretty grim, his enthusiasm is admirable even if his commentary isn’t.

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tomwjsimpson

[capetonianm]

If anyone ever thinks that pilots don’t earn their money because ‘most of the time they sit there while the ‘plane flies itself’ then have a think about those in the skies over England and much of Europe today.

Today is one of those days when those people earn every penny of their salary and then more. Same applies to ATC.

Pilotless aircraft? I don’t think so.

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openfly, Poshgirl58, AnthonyDunn

[AMcWhirter]

All Caledonian Sleeper services have been cancelled tonight.

Check tweets from @CalSleeper for updates

[AnthonyDunn]

If you had a later look via FlightRadar24 at both LHR and LGW, you will have seen multiple outbound cancellations irrespective of carrier or destination. Early/mid afternoon, there were more aborted arrivals at both airports than I personally can recall, with some aircraft circling for the best part of an hour and some attempting two landings before being diverted. Tthis lead to inbound diversions away from LGW/LHR as far afield as Munich. Not a lot of point in attempting to land at anything closer (in the UK or on the continent) because they were similarly impacted by the storm force winds.

[AnthonyDunn]

Quite the most puerile commentary that I have ever heard.

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Poshgirl58

[pheighdough]

On the subject of diversions, the Norwegian flight LAX-LGW ended up in Oslo, the JFK-LGW went to Copenhagen. Both are Norwegian bases.

Emirates tried a few times to land an A380 into Manchester and diverted to Frankfurt and the A380 Gatwick arrival eventually went to Zurich.

Yesterday was a very challenging day for both pilots and air traffic controllers, all trying to operate safely and find a safe place to land. It’ll take a few days to get everything back to normal, in the interim for those not where they expect to be, please be patient with everyone trying to get back to normal ops.

I watched BigPlaneTV yesterday and the commentary and whooping when an aircraft went around at Heathrow. Whilst it’s amazing to see the aircraft being landed, it didn’t help with the addition of a man in a pair of googles trying to sensationalise arrivals in adverse weather and winds. I’m glad everyone remained safe.

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Poshgirl58

[Tom Otley]

We flew out on a B777-300ER at around 1130 yesterday morning.
The delays were partly because the crosswind exceeded the rating for some of the smaller aircraft (according to our pilot) and so we made our way past them in the queue to take off.
Shortly after we took off Heathrow was closed for landings for a while (two hours) and so there were a lot of diversions.

[MartynSinclair]

https://news.sky.com/story/uk-weather-storm-ciara-warnings-for-weekend-as-wild-weather-to-spark-travel-chaos-11928877

“Quite the most puerile commentary that I have ever heard.” – but he got his moment of fame on Sky TV.

More importantly, how many readers will own up to have hit the subscribe button on You Tube – ok… I did… When I was watching there appeared to be 25,000+ other people watching…

[Poshgirl58]

I also can’t believe that guy spent over 6 hours putting together that video. Amazing how many followers he has, many paying for the privilege. Sky News has used an excerpt so he’s probably been paid by them too. Perhaps he also supplies Daily Mail….

Some early morning diversions at BHX yesterday, with domestic and European cancellations throughout the day. Watched Emirates A380 late morning arrival, through very thick cloud. Didn’t take usual long approach, instead quite a sharp turn, if FR24 to be believed. What surprised me was how many Flybe Q400s landed.

Hats off to all crew and ATC yesterday who certainly earned their salaries. I certainly don’t begrudge them any of it.

Now to go outside and clear up sodden newspaper from the drive, just because someone up the road hadn’t secured their bin!

[Author]

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