Weather & Technical Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

[mullion]

Qatar just landing at Manchester

 

[Foxlimayankee]

G-TUIF inbound positioning from CWL but looks like it's currently holding. Seems odd to let it depart if the runway still isn't open!

 

[Foxlimayankee]

G-TUIF inbound positioning from CWL but looks like it's currently holding. Seems odd to let it depart if the runway still isn't open!

Edit: Looks like the runway is now open. Just landed

 

[flymetothemoon]

G-TUIF landed 14.05

 

[Ray Finkle]

Emirates pax are still on the aircraft at MAN, it's due to depart back to Birmingham at 14:15.

From the airport Twitter.

Flights can now resume from #BHX. There will be a backlog of flights to process so please bear with us and we will do our best to get you on your way as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Qatar just departed MAN.

 

[David_itl]

FR 737 EI-FTY seems to have been holding for some time - are they doing runway inspections/putting more deicer on the runway?

 

[Ianbutty]

Looks like a crazy day up there. Credit to the team for getting the airport working again. Hope the passengers were understanding.

I had to cancel to trip to Colchester Zoo for a son's birthday day out. Hey ho. A couple of great snowmen, long walk to the river, soggy socks and gloves.

 

[User001]

Emirates A380 A6-EUY will night stop at MAN and position to BHX at 0900 tomorrow.

 

[Ray Finkle]

EK37 is doing circuits at 17,000ft.

 

[GliderPilot]

At this rate EOX will be joining it!!

 

[Ray Finkle]

EK37 should be going to MAN.

Looked at Paris initially but not enough fuel to get there and LHR currently struggling.

 

[User001]

EK37 to MAN. Couldn’t really accept him but he can’t go anywhere else. That’s 2 A388 nightstopping at MAN!

 

[Ray Finkle]

I was listening. Not enough fuel to get to Paris and LHR/LGW unable to accommodate. It seems that they declared a fuel emergency to get into MAN.

 

[Ray Finkle]

It really has been 'all hands to the pump' at BHX with everybody working their socks off to get things moving. With the amount of snow we've seen today (it's still coming down) it was inevitable that there would be disruption but some of the rants on Twitter are unbelievable, including one person who is actually blaming the airport for Ryanair charging them for water. I'm glad I'm not in charge of the account as the replies would turn the air blue

Big credit to all those at BHX who did everything they could under very difficult circumstances

It must be a very lucrative evening for the local hoteliers

 

[User001]

Some of the rants on social media have actually been hilarious. I know it’s frustrating when you are delayed to that extent, and in some cases, if it’s a really special reason to travel, it can be upsetting. But some of the comments aimed at BHX today, just....wow.

 

[flymetothemoon]

The airport authorities would not turn a scheduled flight away without good reason. BHX has been affected
much worse than anticipated today . MAN apparently thought they would get the brunt of the snow.I'm sure
everyone involved worked their socks off unlike me who remained house-bound all day. Best wishes & thanks
to all involved and let's hope itwill get back to normal tomorrow!

 

[flymetothemoon]

Just thinking, but with the 2 380's returning "home" in the morning and tomorrow's EK39
due, could there be 3 on the ground together. Is this even allowed?

 

[Ray Finkle]

Three is the maximum (it was 5) but only one aircraft is allowed to move at any one time.

With stand availability seemingly playing a big part in the diversions I wonder if we'll be able to accommodate them both tomorrow?

 

[nbdm]

One more going to give it a shot with FR3902 just leaving Malta.

I was on this flight, in Malta it was sort of chaos.
There was no information given (so thank goodness for the Internet!) and when the Ryanair Luton flight got cancelled there were a lot of unhappy people as you can imagine, all being told to collect their bags and leave
Equally all the other flights to the UK were delayed (except one BA to Gatwick and one Ryanair to Edinburgh)

The crew said we were on a standby flight that Ryanair put on because of the weather (not sure how true this is)
We were delayed about an hour leaving Malta, didn't hear anything from the captain about where we were going to land at all throughout the flight, originally I think Manchester was the likely destination - mixture of Twitter and watching things on FR24.
Then about 15 minutes before landing there is an announcement that we are approaching Birmingham.

Very heavy braking as we landed (3:30pm) and then waited about half an hour for a stand to become available. Not surprised there was no space with all the cancellations/aircraft out of place. Saw a Qatar plane out in the snow along with Airfrance, and four Lufthansa planes, interesting and doubt I'll see the airport that busy for quite some time.
Finally disembarked via stairs onto buses, trudging through the snow and waited for a while for the buses to move and get us to the terminal.
A lot of the taxiways were completely covered in snow too and the runway didn't look great.
The crew were saying they had to go back to Malta to fill in for FR3901 but said they would have trouble with pushback because of ice/snow - wasn't really listening at the time, they were chatting with someone else.
I just had a quick look and FR3901 is delayed by nearly 14 hours!
It didn't leave BHX until nearly 9pm (over 5 hours after we landed)

On the whole I am grateful we got back and feel sorry for the thousands affected by it all.
Good work to the teams clearing the airfield. It can't have been easy!