Weather & Technical Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

[TheLocalYokel]

Wednesday 30 April 2014

Thick fog at BRS in the early hours through to breakfast time.

TCX 7653 from Antalya due in at 0450 diverted to East Midlands and KLM 1049 from Amsterdam (due in at 0845) was cancelled as was the return, although I don't kow if the latter was due to the weather at BRS.

Lots of late arrivals shown this morning and through lunchtime suggesting that some outbounds might have been delayed first thing this morning.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Thomas Cook looked to have had a nightmare day at BHX yesterday with two aircraft having delays of approx. 8 hours, now it seems like it's Bristol's turn today with TCX7295 from Enfidha seeing a delay of around 7.5 hours. Apparently the flight is being operated by a Transavia 738 with an ETA of 20:50.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Thomas Cook looked to have had a nightmare day at BHX yesterday with two aircraft having delays of approx. 8 hours, now it seems like it's Bristol's turn today with TCX7295 from Enfidha seeing a delay of around 7.5 hours. Apparently the flight is being operated by a Transavia 738 with an ETA of 20:50.

Welcome back, Ray.

Last Sunday TCX switched their lunchtime Bristol-Zante from one of their own A 321s to a Small Planet B 737. As a result over 60 passengers were unable to travel. They were taken to Gatwick by road and eventually flown to Zante with LGW passengers in the early hours of the following morning. Details in the BRS TCX thread.

Unless the Enfidha A321 wasn't full there could be more passengers left behind if a B 738 has replaced it.

Not a good start for BRS's two new A 321s although there is a suggestion in another forum that the problem may be a lack of pilots.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Unless the Enfidha A321 wasn't full there could be more passengers left behind if a B 738 has replaced it.

Not a good start for BRS's two new A 321s although there is a suggestion in another forum that the problem may be a lack of pilots.

Looking at FR24 the Transavia 738 departed NBE around half an hour ago so I can't see it being back in BRS by 20:50.

Is it the end of the school half term week in the Bristol area? If so then there is a good chance there would have been a healthy load on the A321. Looking at the departures there are also Thomas Cook flights from Enfidha to Cardiff, Birmingham and Stansted tonight so there could be a possibility that some pax may have a coach trip in the early hours to look forward to, that is if there are seats available on those flights.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Looking at FR24 the Transavia 738 departed NBE around half an hour ago so I can't see it being back in BRS by 20:50.

Is it the end of the school half term week in the Bristol area? If so then there is a good chance there would have been a healthy load on the A321. Looking at the departures there are also Thomas Cook flights from Enfidha to Cardiff, Birmingham and Stansted tonight so there could be a possibility that some pax may have a coach trip in the early hours to look forward to, that is if there are seats available on those flights.

Yes, it is the end of half term and, yes, you are right about the eta; BRS website now shows it as 2212.

The inbound Enfidha goes on to operate the 1455 to Antalya and that's shown by BRS as departed - the website never shows the actual departure time, only 'departed'. The other A 321 routes BRS-PMI-EXT-PMI-BRS during the day and operates to Dalaman overnight. It's already shown as 'departed' to DLM. I wonder what operated to Enfidha this morning.

I forgot to mention that last Monday afternoon TCX also had a six hour delay to Bodrum from BRS. A TCX B 757 was brought in (reportedly from GLA) to replace the A 321.

Not been a good week at BRS for charter flights. On Tuesday the local paper carried a story about a TOM from Burgas delayed 17 hours with passengers complaining about continued lack of information, and I notice that a TOM from Palma due in today at 1350 arrived at 1759.

Addendum

Flight from Enfidha landed 2230 - nine hours late on Transavia B 738, PH-HZG.

 

[superking]

tcx delays sunday 1st june
tcx 7052 ibz 6 hour delay minimum
tcx 7066 pmi 4 hour delay minimum.
makes you wonder why delays, as many stories going round. the strongest one is a shortage of pilots. if thats the case why replace the planes as no different from last summer,only size of plane. perhaps they have less pilots with bigger planes.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

tcx delays sunday 1st june
tcx 7052 ibz 6 hour delay minimum
tcx 7066 pmi 4 hour delay minimum.
makes you wonder why delays, as many stories going round. the strongest one is a shortage of pilots. if thats the case why replace the planes as no different from last summer,only size of plane. perhaps they have less pilots with bigger planes.

It seems to be getting worse: TCX 7052 to IBZ due to depart BRS at 0600 and TCX 7066 due to depart at 0645 are now shown on the airport's website departures page as - 'Delayed Next Info 1400'.

However, the 1300 to Zante that is normally flown by the aircraft inbound from IBZ is shown as 'boarding' but the 1350 to Dalaman, normally flown by the inbound from PMI, shows no information.

A poster on another forum says that Thomas Cook has five leased aircraft operating today around its system: a Vueling A 320; a Multiflight B 733; a Transavia B 738; a NEOS B 738; an Air Greenland A 330.

Clearly they have problems, either personnel shortage, aircraft serviceability or perhaps a combination of both.

TOM isn't smelling of roses at BRS today either.

The flight from Malaga due at 1230 is now expected at 1352; the Enfidha due at 1335 is estimating 1910 (this is a 'w' flight believed flown by a Luton-based aircraft);the Arrecife due at 1440 is expected at 1540.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Further to my previous post, the IBZ and PMI flights are still being shown on the BRS website arrivals page as delayed with no further information. A poster on another forum suggests the PMI will arrive back at BRS in the early hours of Monday whilst a poster in the LBA forum of this website says he was at LBA today when a Multiflight aircraft (presumably the B 733 mentioned above) brought in passengers with TCX/BRS labels who were waiting for coaches.

Maybe these were the IBZ passengers although a 733 holds fewer pax than the 321. Shades again of last Sunday with the Small Planet B 733 and yesterday with the Transavia B 738?

At least this afternoon's rotations to/from Zante and Dalaman operated normally.

 

[conns757]

Titan will operate BRS-IBZ -PMI tomorrow and vv with B763.

A Privilage B757 from MAD will operate BRSCFU tomorrow as well. Good for spotters not for pax

 

[kraktoa]

Heard on the grapevine that TCX delays were as result of a combination of the following

Some A321 pilots had certification for flying that aircraft but had not completed sufficient landings at Bristol airport with its short runway. Hence the scramble. Sounds right to you guys?

 

[superking]

yes sounds right about the pilot thing. its no different from last year when we had 2 a320 based against 2 a321 so plane wise the same only a bit bigger. it sure is causing lots of probs and must be costing tc a lot of money sorting it out.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I really have no idea whether TCX A321 crew at BRS need a certain level of familiarisation with the airport because of its runway length and perhaps profile.

The matter of the delayed Palma and Ibiza flights has now been given prominence on the local ITV news and in the local paper.

Local news media reports speak of around 250 passengers delayed until today in Bristol - that's the total for both flights which suggests that some may have been taken by other means (there was a report that some went via MAN leading to a four-hour delay to the MAN departure). A significant number of passengers is still in the Balearics awaiting transport home but again others may have been brought home via other airports.

Passengers were particularly scathing about the lack of information from the tour company/airline - now where have I heard that sort of comment before?

They waited at BRS for eleven hours yesterday before being taken to a local hotel with the assurance that they would be collected at 10 this morning. That didn't happen although they were picked up later.

The Titan B 767 was sourced to operate to PMI and IBZ to take out the passengers still in Bristol and bring home those awaiting transport. It was itself delayed leaving and took off from BRS about 1830 today, 36 hours after the passengers should have left.

Thomas Cook has apologised for the situation which they blame on 'the impact of short term availability of crew, including sickness'.

Passengers will receive 400 euro each as compensation for the delay. This plus any further compensation under EU regulations, plus the cost of hotel accommodation and leasing of aircraft will cost the company a huge amount, and this isn't the only incident of significant delays and leased aircraft in the past few days.

 

[superking]

Power failed in terminal this morning the 6th of june. delays to planes departing. i dont know much else as early days with the problem.

 

[superking]

Power failed in terminal this morning the 6th of june. delays to planes departing. i dont know much else as early days with the problem.

update.
planes arriving and departing as normal, with delays, and cases being left behind.
that will be a nightmare sorting out the cases as to where they go etc
today will be a chaos and long day,no dout the ramp and desk staff will do a good job sorting this out.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

update.
planes arriving and departing as normal, with delays, and cases being left behind.
that will be a nightmare sorting out the cases as to where they go etc
today will be a chaos and long day,no dout the ramp and desk staff will do a good job sorting this out.

Full marks to the airport and airline staff for their efforts in dealing with what was a pretty difficult situation. There were some complaints, mainly about lack of information, from some passengers when interviewed on the local telly, radio and newspaper but the majority of those spoken to were sympathetic to the situation.

I was pleased to see Robert Sinclair the airport CEO conspicuous amongst the delayed passengers explaining and apologising for the situation. It's not often that the top bosses of any organisation get onto the 'factory floor' to meet potentially disgruntled customers.

There are still a lot of knock-on delays, some of several hours, but nothing has been cancelled.

BRS is not a large airport in area with 23 of the 90 departures today scheduled before 0730hours with mainly 150-seat and larger aircraft when the disruption was at its worst.

The major question appears to be the failure of the back-up generator and the CEO acknowledged this failing in an interview on the local telly news.

I can't help feeling a bit sorry for Thomas Cook. After an awful week or so at the airport with delays and cancellations their two A 321s were amongst the worst affected this morning both taking off on their first rotations of the day around four hours late.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Tuesday 24 June 2014

The first day of the six-day French ATC industrial action led to eight cancellations at BRS today, some apparently knock-on effects:

Ryanair Reus and Palma

easyJet Mahon, Madrid, Faro, one Newcastle, one Glasgow and one Edinburgh.

There were also some delays.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Wednesday 25 June 2014

The second day of the six-day French ATC industrial action led to eight cancellations at BRS today, some apparently knock-on effects:

Ryanair Beziers, Ibiza and Malaga.

easyJet Ibiza, one Newcastle, one Palma, one Alicante and one Faro.

In addition the early morning KLM to Amsterdam was cancelled because of a tech aircraft according to the local press.

Also some delays with the 1435 easyJet to Paphos currently showing next information at 1900 hours.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Good news in that the proposed six-day French ATC industrial action has been called off after two days. No cancellations shown today so far - let's hope none occur.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Wednesday 3 September 2014

BRS arrivals page shows TCX 7995 from Dalaman due BRS 0410 diverted to BHX. It's been fairly misty and murky around here this morning - presumably it was worse at 0410.

Everything else seems to have landed before and after this diversion.

 

[superking]

The early morningt aer lingus regional got cancelled.as was said not a lot did not get in. shame the wind in the wrong direction.
oh well cant win um all.