All easyjet flights grounded

[whole diary]

[infoman]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52084003

[Thatcham Crossing]

They've been flying very little for at least a week.

A few rescue flights to the Med and Canaries over the weekend was all I saw.

[Chris from Nailsea]

I drove my van past Bristol Airport yesterday: the car parks were deserted, and the aircraft aprons were gridlocked. It was rather spooky, seeing the opposite of what is normal - and the silence was also incredible. 

[TonyK]

No big surprise in the end. The only similar occurrences happened in the aftermath of 9/11 on 11/9/2001, and following the antics of Eyjafjallajökull in 2010, although not on such a global scale, and for periods of weeks rather than months. There are still flights in the air, including my house guests en route to Kuala Lumpur (so I can leave my bedroom!!), but no bucket and spade work. Loganair has a number of flights that can still be regarded as essential, but has grounded half of its fleet.

easyJet has said it will pay its staff 80% of their wages, and quite a few have volunteered to help in the NHS, as have many other people. Maintenance staff can give everything a thorough overhaul, but there is no point in bringing major services forward by much, given how expensive they are. The little things that are not safety critical or time limited will get done, I would imagine. There will need to be engine runs periodically to keep the engines in shape. Pilots will have to stay current, which at the legal minimum means three take-offs and landings as sole manipulator of the controls within the previous 90 days to be able to carry passengers. There will already be queues at simulators.

It will be interesting to see how this all ends. My guess is that airlines will largely survive, the exception being the smaller ones, but not Loganair, who will be given help if they need it. Government will relax some of the charges such as air passenger duty and air traffic control, debts will be rescheduled for them and for airports. Heathrow's third runway might just be quietly forgotten about without the Supreme Court appeal, although I doubt it. My guess is that its foreign owners will be pleased with a delay of considerable length, to give time for business to pick up again. It will take years for sales of Toblerone to recover.

easyJet could ask the government for direct help, but probably won't. 140 aircraft of its fleet were transferred to easyJet Europe GmbH based in Austria after the EU^» (European Union - about) referendum, giving it a choice of governments to ask, as well as the threat of cutting routes if help is not forthcoming. The second biggest airline in terms of UK^▸ (United Kingdom) passenger numbers is our Spanish owned national flag carrier airline, BA^» (British Airways - about), which will probably be the case that decides the financial rules. Ryanair is Ireland's problem. BAe, Rolls Royce, GKN, Dowty and many more will suffer, which will delight environmental activists who don't rely on a wage from them, their supply chain or the cafes or sandwich shops close by. Pension funds, banks, insurance companies and the like will be watching anxiously, as will their pensioners, members and customers. Most worried may be the Chancellor, although he may relish the opportunity to be the fiscal hero, with a ready-written excuse if it all goes north.

I am confident of a return to normality, albeit not a normal normality, in due course. So much so that I have just squandered slightly over £100 of my hard-earned (or ill-gotten) cash on a pair of return tickets to the Canary Islands next January. I am eager to show confidence in not only our economy, but that of the harder-hit corners of the EU, and prefer sitting by a pool in shorts with an improving book in one hand (and an even more improving cold beer in the other) to chasing the garden furniture through neighbouring fields in freezing rain. If I am offered vouchers by the airline, I shall decline, knowing that a voucher for a defunct airline is worth a lot less than a booking. I paid by credit card just in case, and £100 isn't a huge punt.

[Thatcham Crossing]

I am confident of a return to normality, albeit not a normal normality, in due course

I think there's going to be a "new normal" in the commercial aviation sector.

I hear from a colleague who currently works closely with London's second airport that they are expecting/preparing for a 20% downwards "adjustment" in the amount that we fly when this is all over.

I agree that Loganair should be supported. Their core is "lifeline" routes from around the Scottish mainland to the Highlands and Islands, but they had also started to step in to cover some key routes around the rest of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) when Flybe ceased operations (they obviously had a plan baking, which they announced the very next day). For them to go aswell would be a disaster for domestic connectivity, and regional airports like Southampton, Cardiff, Newquay, Belfast City and Exeter.

[grahame]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52103171

British Airways will suspend all flights to and from London's Gatwick airport amid a collapse in demand due to the coronavirus.

[TonyK]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52103171

British Airways will suspend all flights to and from London's Gatwick airport amid a collapse in demand due to the coronavirus.

A sensible idea - transfer what flights are left to Heathrow, and use Gatwick for storage. It will be fun when this ends - moving a 747 a distance of 40 miles isn't quite so easy as shifting a train.

[Celestial]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52103171

British Airways will suspend all flights to and from London's Gatwick airport amid a collapse in demand due to the coronavirus.

A sensible idea - transfer what flights are left to Heathrow, and use Gatwick for storage. It will be fun when this ends - moving a 747 a distance of 40 miles isn't quite so easy as shifting a train.

There was an instance recently of a BA^» (British Airways - about) 747 moving from Cardiff Airport to St Athan Airfield, a distance of under 4 miles.  One way only for the frame I'm afraid, and the pilot did loop around a bit - maybe to burn off a bit of fuel or maybe to give the ol' girl one last blast.

I expect his taxi back was faster.

https://ukaviation.news/could-this-be-the-shortest-747-flight-in-history/

[bradshaw]

When I taught in Dorchester one of the ex-pupils, by then a Naval Helicopter Pilot, attended the annual Combined Cadet Force day by landing his Wessex helicopter on the school playing fields and later taking off to land again at the Rugby Club a short distance away!

[eightonedee]

A sensible idea - transfer what flights are left to Heathrow, and use Gatwick for storage. It will be fun when this ends - moving a 747 a distance of 40 miles isn't quite so easy as shifting a train.

Reminds me of an experience that did not reflect well on Delta Airlines. My wife and I went on an organised package holiday to Kentucky back in 2004, the trip being to see the bloodstock establishments of that state, and interest of my wife's (I bunked off, and hired a car to go birding some days!). Delta provided the flights - to Cincinnati, then onwards after a change of plane to Lexington. This last leg was only about 40 miles. Transport for the trip to the various establishments being visited, and to and from the hotel, was on a hired coach. We discovered from chatting to the driver that he drove out from Cincinnati every day to pick up the tour group.

On our departure, he duly drove us to the airport. As international passengers, and a party of 40 odd to boot, we had to arrive a little earlier than the one hour check in time. So our driver would have been safely back in his depot well before we took off.

Unfortunately Delta had indulged in that terrible airline practice of overbooking the Lexington-Cincinnati flight, and duly tried "bumping" some of our party, upsetting some of the more elderly tour members in the process. Had Delta simply bused us to Cincinnati Airport (its full name - Cincinnati North Kentucky International tells you it's on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River - in fact not far off Highway 75 to Lexington!), we would have been saved this unnecessary hassle - and could have left the hotel later, avoiding a further wait for our connecting flight back home. And of course a transfer bus service instead of this ridiculous air route would have saved a lot of unnecessary emissions.

[Reginald25]

I once had a flight all to myself. I landed at Houston International, and needed to go the SW of the city. Speaking to the desk clerk, he convinced me that a flight to Sugarland, a small commuter airport in that area was the quickest and cheapest way. As I'd flown in, he changed my original ticket for another and I paid very little for this flight. However when I got on the plane, I was the only one travelling, (there were the two pilots of course) and I got the impression that they wouldn't have made the flight if I hadn't been booked on it. I suspect they regretted encouraging me to use that route! but its probably what a lot of flights are like these days.

[Bmblbzzz]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52103171

British Airways will suspend all flights to and from London's Gatwick airport amid a collapse in demand due to the coronavirus.

A sensible idea - transfer what flights are left to Heathrow, and use Gatwick for storage. It will be fun when this ends - moving a 747 a distance of 40 miles isn't quite so easy as shifting a train.

There was an instance recently of a BA^» (British Airways - about) 747 moving from Cardiff Airport to St Athan Airfield, a distance of under 4 miles.  One way only for the frame I'm afraid, and the pilot did loop around a bit - maybe to burn off a bit of fuel or maybe to give the ol' girl one last blast.

I expect his taxi back was faster.

https://ukaviation.news/could-this-be-the-shortest-747-flight-in-history/

Does the "one way only" refer specifically to this plane for the reasons given in the article, or is there some general reason why a short flight in a large aircraft is harmful to it?

[MVR S&T]

There is a segment in 'flying heavy metal' on Discovery with Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson, where they are doing training landings and takeofffs at Cardiff I think, in a 747, so no the aircraft has no priblem with short flight, unless you load up with enough fuel to cross the atlantic, and then dont, as the aicraft may break if you try and land with too much fuel.

[Thatcham Crossing]

unless you load up with enough fuel to cross the atlantic, and then dont, as the aircraft may break if you try and land with too much fuel.

What you describe is an overweight landing (ie, above Max Landing Weight), and will normally only be carried out in a dire emergency (eg, uncontrollable fire, airframe damage causing control issues etc). This is why most commercial aircraft will hold (even with engine/s shut down) to either burn or dump fuel following an issue, to get below MLW before making an approach.

Most widebody jets have the ability to "dump" and I've been a passenger when it's been done. In "Air Traffic" speak it's known as "adjusting gross weight" (a rather PC term for what it actually is), but in my case 40 tonnes of JetA1 was sprayed out of pipes in the wing trailing edges as we flew in circles over open water.

[Celestial]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52103171

British Airways will suspend all flights to and from London's Gatwick airport amid a collapse in demand due to the coronavirus.

A sensible idea - transfer what flights are left to Heathrow, and use Gatwick for storage. It will be fun when this ends - moving a 747 a distance of 40 miles isn't quite so easy as shifting a train.

There was an instance recently of a BA^» (British Airways - about) 747 moving from Cardiff Airport to St Athan Airfield, a distance of under 4 miles.  One way only for the frame I'm afraid, and the pilot did loop around a bit - maybe to burn off a bit of fuel or maybe to give the ol' girl one last blast.

I expect his taxi back was faster.

https://ukaviation.news/could-this-be-the-shortest-747-flight-in-history/

Does the "one way only" refer specifically to this plane for the reasons given in the article, or is there some general reason why a short flight in a large aircraft is harmful to it?

For the reasons in the article. St Athan is where planes go to be recycled, although this particular one seems to have a bit of a future for training of some sort of other before becoming razor blades.

By the way, looking at the track of the plane it's clear the circuitous route was needed because of the runway alignments and wind direction, but that wouldn't have been as interesting.