Weather & Technical Diversions, Delays & Cancellations

It was incredibly lucky on sat night for arrivals. Between 23:00 and 01:00 about 10 flights landed from places like Funchal and FVE. Mostly elderly passengers. Bags cleared by 01:30. By 3 am the snow descended. Luckily most of them pax must have reached home. Few hours either side and lots of elderly people would have been stranded. The NOTAM closure started from 2 am until 12:00 noon. Shows how lucky the people were.

Lots of problems again Monday morning. Various flights cancelled or delayed due to more snow and ice. Airport staff doing a sterling job in these diffacult times.
Weather forcasted to get better as the week goes on.

superking said:

Lots of problems again Monday morning. Various flights cancelled or delayed due to more snow and ice. Airport staff doing a sterling job in these diffacult times.
Weather forcasted to get better as the week goes on.

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After another overnight dump of snow I thought things would be much worse this morning. In fact, so far the only cancellation is the 0605 BM to Brussels, albeit the 0730 easyJet to Prague is still showing 'next information'. All arrivals have landed at the moment but looking ahead many of the flights were obviously very late departing (BRS never shows the actual departure time on its website) because a lot of arrivals later this morning/lunchtime are showing lengthy delays.

Let's hope this doesn't impact on later departures with cancellations.

BRS website showing 81 airline departures scheduled for today.

I missed the local tv news yesterday evening but my wife says they interviewed several passengers at BRS caught up in the delays/cancellations and no-one moaned. They were understanding of the situation and said they were kept informed which I always think is more than half the battle in situations like the one we've had in recent times.

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-airport-weather-health-safety-1355653

I spoke too soon about understanding passengers.

It seems some passengers were left on aircraft at BRS last night after they had landed allegedly because walkways had not been treated and 'health and safety' dictated the passengers stay put. There was also a suggestion that a meeting was being held involving staff to decide if it was safe to work.

Being a Trinity Mirror publication there is space for readers' comments. Being Bristol Airport, and being a city of championship-class whingers about most things, the armchair airport critics have cuddled up in front of their warm fires and let their imagaination run riot with their keyboard.

It's the usual stuff: why use this Micky Mouse airport?; why not use a proper airport?; why doesn't Bristol Airport spend money to become an all-weather airport?; why was the airport closed after a light snowfall which apparently was all we had this weekend?; and so on - that's a flavour.

TheLocalYokel said:

It's the usual stuff: why use this Micky Mouse airport?; why not use a proper airport?;

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It does beg the question of what is a 'proper' airport in their mind's!

With the problems at LHR and every airport in the UK,that must mean we have no proper airport in the UK.
I would like to see if any one could name a proper airport in the world that has low tempertures and does not suffer in some way with problems.

superking said:

With the problems at LHR and every airport in the UK,that must mean we have no proper airport in the UK.
I would like to see if any one could name a proper airport in the world that has low tempertures and does not suffer in some way with problems.

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The only proper airport in the world is Changi.

No one comes close. Not even snow......

I would buy a house inside Changi. Its that good.

TheLocalYokel said:

After another overnight dump of snow I thought things would be much worse this morning. In fact, so far the only cancellation is the 0605 BM to Brussels, albeit the 0730 easyJet to Prague is still showing 'next information'. All arrivals have landed at the moment but looking ahead many of the flights were obviously very late departing (BRS never shows the actual departure time on its website) because a lot of arrivals later this morning/lunchtime are showing lengthy delays.

Let's hope this doesn't impact on later departures with cancellations.

BRS website showing 81 airline departures scheduled for today.

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Full marks to the airport and the airlines. Only the early BM to Brussels was cancelled. All other flights operated - 80 out and 80 in, although some of the ins are currently still out but looking to be in as soon as possible.

BM2002 BRU-BRS cancelled this morning the outbound landed in BRU nearly 2hrs late, the operating aircraft G-RJXI has then operated SN2633 BRU-HAJ at 1140 which itself was 2hrs behind schedule, it is due to operate SN2634 HAJ-BRS at 1155 but current status is unknown. It looks like the aircraft has been used to operate the SN HAJ flight instead of the return flight to BRS

alphagolf said:

BM2002 BRU-BRS cancelled this morning the outbound landed in BRU nearly 2hrs late, the operating aircraft G-RJXI has then operated SN2633 BRU-HAJ at 1140 which itself was 2hrs behind schedule, it is due to operate SN2634 HAJ-BRS at 1155 but current status is unknown. It looks like the aircraft has been used to operate the SN HAJ flight instead of the return flight to BRS

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In addition to this mornings BRU-BRS cancellation, the DUS outbound and inbound has been cancelled too.

The afternoon arrival from FRA is also running with a 3hr delay.

Another bad day for bmi

alphagolf said:

In addition to this mornings BRU-BRS cancellation, the DUS outbound and inbound has been cancelled too.

The afternoon arrival from FRA is also running with a 3hr delay.

Another bad day for bmi

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It's becoming beyond a joke. They have been cancelling flights with monotonous regularity for months. It's a good job they lost the Airbus corporate shuttle contract to Eastern (although they seem to have problems themselves as an airline) because if they haven't the aircraft (and/or crews?) to operate the public timetable how could they have done the Airbus shuttle as well?

TheLocalYokel said:

It's becoming beyond a joke. They have been cancelling flights with monotonous regularity for months. It's a good job they lost the Airbus corporate shuttle contract to Eastern (although they seem to have problems themselves as an airline) because if they haven't the aircraft (and/or crews?) to operate the public timetable how could they have done the Airbus shuttle as well?

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I'd imagine that they'd either had to wet lease an aircraft for it or there would be many more cancellations than at present.

Jerry said:

I'd imagine that they'd either had to wet lease an aircraft for it or there would be many more cancellations than at present.

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BM have wet leased aircraft for their public service in the past. Why they can't cover so many cancellations in this way I have no idea. I've never used them but most reports I've heard or read say they have a very good product, if a little expensive, when they are operating.

TheLocalYokel said:

BM have wet leased aircraft for their public service in the past. Why they can't cover so many cancellations in this way I have no idea. I've never used them but most reports I've heard or read say they have a very good product, if a little expensive, when they are operating.

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The only thing I can think of is the expense but if they looked at their schedule in advance and it looked tight and went for a full summer/winter wet lease then maybe that would be cheaper overall. Especially if say Loganair provided the aircraft.

Jerry said:

The only thing I can think of is the expense but if they looked at their schedule in advance and it looked tight and went for a full summer/winter wet lease then maybe that would be cheaper overall. Especially if say Loganair provided the aircraft.

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If they begin to haemorrhage passengers at a serious rate because of the cancellations it might be less expensive to wet lease.

TheLocalYokel said:

If they begin to haemorrhage passengers at a serious rate because of the cancellations it might be less expensive to wet lease.

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There is also their codeshare partners to consider as well as any future partner's being put off by perceived unreliability.

What happens to passsngers on code share connecting flights gets with these cancellations. It’s not good news for BMI.. I do wonder how sustainable their model is.

Weather forcast
Met office predicting a big freeze with snow over the easter period.It could be hit or miss where it happens. Lets hope it does not interrupt people catching flights. On the other hand better to have no cold snap at all.

bmi seem to have had a much better day today (Wed 21/03) all departures ex BRS have operated with the longest delay of 45mins on the first departure to FRA. Everything else seems to have got away approx 30mins or less from scheduled.
I have taken a look at FR24 for each aircraft operating today with a view of what flights they have operated over the past 2 weeks:
G-RJXB - Operated bmi flight numbers only
G-RJXE - Operated bmi flight numbers only
G-EMBI - Operated bmi, SN flight numbers to/from BRU to HAJ, SXB, TRN
G-RJXL - Operated bmi, BE flight numbers to/from ABZ to MME, NWI
G-RJXP - Operated bmi, SN flight numbers to/from BRU to SXB
G-RJXA - Operated bmi. SN & BE flight numbers to/from BRU to TRN, to/from ABZ to NWI

Taking a look further back a lot of the above seem to be regular operations.

My question would be are they are sub-leasing to SN and BE and if so is this then having a knock effect to the operations at BRS?

alphagolf said:

My question would be are they are sub-leasing to SN and BE and if so is this then having a knock effect to the operations at BRS?

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The BE flights are actually for Eastern Airways because they closed the NWI base i believe but the odd thing is that they have been using Eastern Airways for BMI's LDY-STN PSO flights.