Weather & Technical Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

Volcanic Ash Problems

The Icelandic volcano situation that is affecting all UK airspace and beyond grounded most of BRS's flights today.

The only ones that I am aware of that made it out and back were a Ryanair to/from Limoges and an easyJet to/from Grenoble this morning. Isle of Scilly Skybus DH-6 also arrived late morning and was able to return to the Scilly Isles shortly after.

I believe easyJets departed to Malaga and Nice but airspace was closed down before they could return.

A Thomas Cook A320 to Arrecife and a Thomson B757 to Sharm el Shekh departed for those destinations but have not been able to return.

Koral Blue A319 from Sharm el Sheikh was due to land at 1223 but was diverted (I was told to Paris, not sure if CDG or Orly).

The most fortunate was Continental B757 from Newark. It arrived two hours late around 1030 but was able to return to the USA two hours later.

A passenger on the flight has told the Dried Plum that most of the overnight CO flights from Newark to the UK regions were cancelled.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

The continuing volcanic ash saga

Ryanair cancelled nine rotations from BRS today, namely:

Valencia
Las Palmas
Bergerac
Faro
Alicante
Beziers
Reus
Marrakesh
Malaga

easyJet cancelled three rotations today, namely:

Faro (x 2)
Malaga

However easyJet operated to Alicante (x 2) as did Thomson that also flew to Reus, two routes cancelled by Ryanair.

easyJet also operated to the Canaries (Tenerife South) but Ryanair cancelled its Las Palmas.

easyJet managed to fly to Bordeaux and Toulouse but Ryanair axed Beziers and Bergerac.

The ash creates uncertainly as it is for air travellers but airlines making different calls on the same routes or nearly the same routes only adds to the confusion.

It seems Ryanair's policy is a blanket cancellation to any area affected whilst other airlines seem to judge it on a case by case basis.

There were no other cancellations today.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

The volcanic ash saga continues to annoy Bristol Airport

Today has seen 15 rotations cancelled with easyJet having the lion's share with 12 against Ryanair's three.

easyJet cancellations:

Pisa
Nice
Paris Cdg
Lisbon
Geneva
Paphos
Palma (one rotation)
Alicante (one rotation)
Faro (one rotation)
Malaga (one rotation)
Bordeaux
Newcastle (one rotation)

Ryanair cancellations:

Porto
Belfast City (two rotations)

easyJet cancelled all or most flights to a number of Continental destinations across the board so far as the UK is concerned.

I wonder why easyJet cancelled many of its Paris CDG rotations including the Bristol when other airlines operated there. Flybe flew there and back from both Cardiff and Exeter around the same time as the BRS easyJet should have operated, and Air France operated its CDG service into BRS this evening. Other airlines such as BA and Air France seemed to be flying into LHR from CDG this afternoon and evening at regular intervals.

BRS also lost Geneva, Lisbon and Nice amongst today's easyJet cancellations, routes that the airline cancelled from most of its other UK airports, yet I noticed that some airlines did operate some flights into the UK today from all three of those airports.

This evening easyJet cancelled Alicante, Malaga, Palma and Faro from BRS, having flown the earlier rotations today to all four, yet Ryanair operated its Faro and Palma this evening.

I am sure the volcano situation is a logistical nightmare to all airlines, not to mention the financial implications. I assume some of the evening easyJet rotations were cancelled because several inbound aircraft on earlier routes are several hours late.

I have sympathy with airlines because if an airline cancels across the board to places likely to be affected and it turns out that all airlines subsequently have to cancel then those passengers of the prescient airline will be grateful for the early decision because it will have saved them an unnecessary trip to the airport. Yet, if such a decision is seen as premature because other airlines manage to continue to operate then the blanket cancelling airline will be the focus of passenger criticism.

All this at a time when easyJet has launched a major advertising campaign around Bristol on buses and at bus stops.

This post is an edited version of my alter ego's submission elsewhere on the web.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

Latest ash cancellation scoreboard

Monday 10 May

7 - (5 easyJet and 2 Ryanair)

Ryanair - Faro and Malaga
easyJet - Faro, Malaga, Funchal, Lisbon and Madrid

Tuesday 11 May

8 - (4 easyJet and 4 Ryanair)

easyJet - Faro, Tenerife South, Barcelona and Malaga
Ryanair - Faro, Las Palmas, Alicante and Malaga

Running total since Saturday - 42

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

More Ash

Local media this evening reports 12 flights from Bristol cancelled (to N Ireland and Scotland).
Not sure if this means 12 rotations or 12 sectors.

I've been out all day and the BRS website appears to be down this evening and the apron website is also playing up and not updating.

Local tv news also said BRS has been taking diversions from Liverpool and Manchester, airports that have been closed for several hours, but no details given.

Birmingham has now closed this evening and at least four BHX flights have diverted or are in the process of diverting to Bristol - 2 TCX (one from Monastir and one from Arrecife), 1 TOM (from Arrecife) and 1 Ryanair (from Ibiza).

 

[Aviador]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

It least it will make up (slightly) for all the lost flights over the last few weeks. Having said that, the ash cloud is said to be moving south so it's not looking good for tomorrow.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

Bristol closed around midnight and is still closed until at least 1300 hours.

Two easyJet flights went into Cardiff between midnight and 0200 this morning - don't know what happened to other flights due in between 0200 and 0600.

Cardiff is now closed too.

Addendum

Bristol and Cardiff airports have reopened within the last hour, ahead of the 1300 hours time previously stated (1200 hours 17 May).

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

Ash cancellations on Sunday 16 May

So far as I can establish there were 16 rotations cancelled:

easyJet (7) - Belfast International (x 2), Newcastle (x 2), Glasgow, Inverness and Edinburgh

Ryanair (3) - Belfast City (x 2) and Dublin

Air Southwest (4) - Plymouth, Newquay, Manchester and Leeds-Bradford

Flybe (2) - Isle of Man and Jersey

Ash cancellations on Monday 17 May

It seems that 35 rotations were cancelled:

easyJet (15) - Newcastle (x 2), Belfast International (x 2), Glasgow, Palma, Nice, Pisa, Faro, Geneva, Malaga, Alicante, Barcelona, Krakow and Paphos

Ryanair (7) - Belfast City, Girona, Seville, Bratislava, Kaunas, Riga and Beziers

Air Southwest (4) - Plymouth, Newquay, Manchester and Leeds-Bradford

KLM (3) - Amsterdam (x 3).

Air France (1) - Paris Cdg

Aurigny (1) - Guernsey

Continental (1) - Newark

Brussels Airlines (bmi) (1) - Brussels

Scilly Skybus (1) - Isles of Scilly

Eastern (1) - Aberdeen

Monday's cancellations amount to about 40% of the 88 rotations scheduled during that day.

Several charter flights were also originally cancelled on Monday but all seem to have been reinstated although some are running many, many hours late, so I have not included them in the list above.

 

[News Guru]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

[textarea]Flight strike affects Bristol

A STRIKE by French air traffic controllers has caused minor disruption to flights at Bristol Airport.

French unions are protesting at a merger of air traffic control networks which could see the country's workers lose certain job perks.

Holidaymakers now face more travel uncertainty due to the five-day strike which started yesterday (Wed).

A spokesman from Bristol Airport said: "We only have minor reactionary delays to flights. No significant flight disruption is currently being experienced.

Source[/textarea]

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

Another French ATC strike

Following rotations cancelled today from Bristol.

easyJet Toulouse, Murcia and Paris Cdg.

Ryanair Beziers, Alicante and Valencia

Air France Paris Cdg (one rotation)

I suppose easyJet has a valid reason for cancelling these flights but that makes over 20 rotations cancelled in the past 12 days, mainly through crewing problems of which the national press is taking up the cudgels.

Stelios has also given the CEO and chairman 90 days to get things right on pain of withdrawing the easyJet name for which he says he holds the rights (disputed by the company). It's an idle threat in some ways because the main summer rush will be long over in 90 days time and the airline ought to be able to manage things better then anyway.

 

[Aviador]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

Easyjet has admitted that rostering problems at some bases have added to delay problems.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

Thursday 23 September 2010

17 rotations were cancelled at BRS following the French ATC industrial action. That's nearly a fifth of the 90+ rotations scheduled, or over 4,000 passengers.

Will be interesting to see how this affects passenger figures when September's are published.

For the record the cancelled rotations were:

easyJet Alicante (x 2), Glasgow, Nice, Lisbon, Barcelona, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Marseille, Madrid, Palma and Malaga.

Ryanair Limoges, Girona and Bergerac.

Air France Paris Cdg (x 2).

Friday 24 September

Two more rotations cancelled as the effects of the French ATC industrial action that finished at 0600 today continue to impact on flying:

easyJet to Nice and to Geneva

 

[Aviador]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

What are the French striking for this time? Is there ever a year that goes by without them striking. :nea:

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

It's a continuing protest against the government's proposal to increase the national retirement age from 60 to 62.

The protests are right across the board, not just in aviation.

 

[Aviador]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

It's a continuing protest against the government's proposal to increase the national retirement age from 60 to 62.

The protests are right across the board, not just in aviation.

They should be lucky they don't have to retire at 65+ like here in the UK.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

Tuesday 28 September 2010

Belgium ATC staged a sudden strike to day causing two of the three daily Brussels Airlines (operated by bmiRegional) rotations between BRS and BRU to be cancelled.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

Wednesday 29 September 2010

Bristol Airport seems to have escaped the worst of the Spanish General Strike today.

Ryanair cancelled three rotations - Valencia, Malaga and Palma.

easyJet cancelled one of two Barcelona rotations.

easyJet originally showed one of two rotations to both Malaga and Alicante cancelled (both evening ones) but though the Malaga is shown as cancelled on the airport web arrivals page both it and the Alicante are show as having departed earlier this evening on the deparures page.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

Tuesday 12 October 2010

The French are at it again with the following rotations from Bristol cancelled today:

easyJet - Toulouse and Paris Cdg

Ryanair - Limoges, Bergerac and Reus

Air France - one of the 3 x daily Paris Cdg rotations

Six in total.

 

[Aviador]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

I don't know why they bother because it's not getting them anywhere.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Re: Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

Tuesday 19 October 2010

There would be something wrong if some flights from/to BRS weren't cancelled on at least one day each week owing to overseas industrial action.

Today is the turn of the French again - a greedy bunch because they resort to industrial action more often than anyone else.

Rotations cancelled today are:

Ryanair - Limoges, Bergerac and Reus

easyJet - Toulouse and Paris Cdg

Air France - one of the three Paris Cdg rotations

OLT - Bremen, though I don't know if this was a result of the French industrial action

Six in total - same number of cancellations and same routes as the previous Tuesday (apart from OLT).