Well, it looks like I am stuck in the US for the time being. I was supposed to fly back from JFK tonight, but the flight is cancelled for obvious volcanic reasons.
I've extended my car hire without fuss, and fortunately my friends are happy to let me stay on so no real hassle there.
Problem is, Air France just hang up on you after keeping you on hold for 5 minutes, and their website has no obvious way of rescheduling - I'd like to get booked on a flight for Saturday, say, just in case it's flyable by then. I don't really want to be here all next week as well.
All a bit frustrating, but at least I don't have a car sat in a carpark amassing charges as I'm late back.
SO.
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My SIL is booked on a flight to Amsterdam tomorrow for his 40th Stag do..........he didn't invite me...so serves him right ! :-)
Ted
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" 40th Stag do " Is he a serial bigamist?
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Been to amsterdam twice and never a plane involved :).
Mind you all I did when I got there was drink.
And as for ash not effecting our cars just you wait till all the paint work is scratched and pits of ash get down those cylinders!
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Cerial bigamist ?
....I don't know what he has for breakfast !
Ted
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>> their website has no obvious way of rescheduling
According to the deluge of news articles, most if not all airlines' websites can't cope with the idea. You'll have to bgear with it and rebook over the phone or in person.
One of my dad's colleagues is supposed to be flying back to the UK from Dubai, boarding at 0200GMT (ie in about 3 hours!). That's not going to happen then...
Last edited by: Dave_TD {P} on Thu 15 Apr 10 at 23:10
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>> All a bit frustrating but at least I don't have a car sat in a
>> carpark amassing charges as I'm late back.
And at least you don't have to risk hearing the following announcement:
"This is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped."
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8622099.stm
Yikes!
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In the Vox Pop bit at the start of the 6 o'clock news on radio 4 some guy said, apparently seriously, "they've stolen all our money now they are stopping us going on holiday."
Made me chuckle.
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Well I should have been flying out of Gatwick to the Middle East this morning .
Having spent the last month setting up business meetings all next week with the army and airforce commanders of one particular country , obtaining passes for next week to their air bases and army headquarters etc .... I now have to start all over again.
EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING!!!!!
But then I only live 20 minutes from the airport and I am not stuck in a terminal somewhere abroad so maybe I should be thankful.
I 'll probably pressure wash my patio this weekend instead....
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>>Well I should have been flying out of Gatwick to the Middle East this morning .
You could well ask why you aren't. Talk about Health and Safety overkill. The quoted 747 flew into a freshly-erupted volcanic dustcloud so dense it sandblasted the windscreen! Fine dust disperses, so there's hardly any chance of encountering anything of similar density south of the Shetlands.
Go outside - a lovely April day. See any dust at all in the air? No. So what's stopping a plane taking off from Gatwick and heading down to Brest beacon at 18,000ft? Nothing but H&S paranoia.
Aircraft operating in the Middle East and Africa have to cope with dusty air all the time. The air over England is completely unaffected by the ribbon of dust lying down the North Sea at 20K ft and above. So don't fly across the N sea at 25,000ft!
They've even grounded the air ambulances. Just how high do those things fly? Inevitably, someone is going to die as a result of that decision - whatever happened to common sense in this country.
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I've finally managed to speak to Air France. They have no idea when they are going to be allowed to fly again, but are booking assuming that they can start late in the weekend. So, I'm on the first available flight and leaving...
Weds 21st. So I'm in NY for the weekend and for most of next week, at best. Might start looking at cruise ships, although I bet the price has gone through the roof in the last 24 hours.
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>> Talk about Health and Safety overkill.
They're damned if they do and damned if they don't. If flights were allowed and there were an accident involving the ingestion of ash the press questions would never stop. Twould be interesting to see the reaction of the airlines if operations were permitted at the resposibility of the holder of the operating license.
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All aircraft operation involves constant assessment of environmental risk. Anything from bad visibility to windshear. Jet engines are not fragile things, or they would self-destruct instantly under 3rd-world dust conditions.
I just cannot see why it's impossible to fly an aircraft through crystal-clear skies at flight levels where there is no dust - at all. By all means divert around,or under, identified patches of the, talcum-powder fine, ash if that is thought prudent, but our current conditions are a million miles away from the density of the wall of pyroclastic debris that choked that BA jet's engines.
This nonsense carries the risk of bringing down BA and other airlines; their financial state was pretty parlous to start with and they will inevitably be the worst hit. The economic state of the country is not exactly robust either.
As eruptions tend to be drawn out affairs - particularly if history repeats and Katla blows too - then are we going to be faced with these conditions for months. Sooner or later the flights will have to restart and just cope, so what's stopping them getting that process underway.
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>> Sooner or later the flights will have to restart and just cope so what's stopping
>> them getting that process underway.
>>
Possibly not a time for knee jerk decisions, unless they be fail-safe ones.
Safety apart, the possibility of engine damage is also a consideration - what cost the whole BA fleet grounded for inspection/repair?
They sent up a Dornier earlier to have a sniff around -
"A high-tech plane with sensors calibrated to find volcanic ash has landed after finding 'a lot of muck' in UK airspace.
Aeronautical engineer Dr Guy Gratton of Airborne Atmospheric Measurements, said he would advise against flying passenger jets in those conditions. "
goo.gl/Uywh
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>>I just cannot see why it's impossible to fly an aircraft through crystal-clear skies at flight levels where there is no dust - at all.
See the BBC item! Commercial aircraft cannot detect it.
>> By all means divert around,or under, identified patches of the, talcum-powder fine, ash if that is thought prudent,
Commercial aircraft cannot detect it.
The BBC item explains it is not just at high cruise levels.
Extra fuel burn /range comes into play and many many other problems of air traffic control.
>> but our current conditions are a million miles away from the density of the wall of pyroclastic debris that choked that BA jet's engines.
Yes but still very dangerous and when you see the cost of the KLM repairs after it did not divert around ash. IIRC $80M.
>>This nonsense carries the risk of bringing down BA and other airlines
Your words.
>>Sooner or later the flights will have to restart and just cope, so what's stopping them getting that process underway.
Get it wrong and if you are lucky you have a big bill for new engines and repairs. If you are unlucky then maybe the instant end of an airline.
You assume the airlines can get insurance to fly in these conditions.
A very few flights have operated today and as yet there are no reports of damage to these aircraft. I hope they are being examined with extra care.
I have had a few "close events" in the many years I have flown and there is no way I would fly for at least a few days in the areas affected by this dust.
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you seem to hold the bbc view very highly - henry k
you obviously didnt see the invasion of iraq then as the bbc view was so biased i turned to Al Jazeera and sky for a truer picture
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>> you seem to hold the bbc view very highly - henry k
???
Have you seen the BBC item?
The BBC item was not a view but an interview with the one guy in the UK that had any data on the subject.
They just let the guy say his bit. ( unless you think it was doctored )
I also read some of the aviation sites.
P. S.
Its about Iceland not Iraq.
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I wouldn't expect commercial jets to be able to detect it; that's why we have air-traffic control to route them around it. The Dornier was sent to where the weather satellite had already detected the worst pollution - and returned totally unscathed. So much for "very dangerous."
As I've said before - just use that useful plane to map the dustiest areas and levels and avoid them; this is going on for a very long time and it isn't going to get better quickly. Volcanic ash makes talc seem like gravel and can stay airborne for years - see Krakatoa.
Comparing the highly-technical description of "a bit of muck" to the hellish conditions that actually damaged engines in past incidents is disingenuous. Consider how much grit a jet ingests, without damage, just taxi-ing around a dusty airport.
Engine manufacturers must issue operating parameters for their products and in many areas of the UK these are being easily met. A total NATS ban - even on hot-air balloons - is ludicrous.
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At this moment in time, due to the NATS advisory, NO commercial plane has insurancewithin the affected area. In the event of a crash, uninsured losses will bring the airline (and its exectuives) down, broke and bust.
You think tony o'leary has grounded Ryan Air for altruistic reasons? Nope - its financial.
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>>The Dornier was sent to where the weather satellite had already detected the worst pollution - and returned totally unscathed. So much for "very dangerous."
>>
I just wonder why the guy said " We were running away from it"
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You might want to visit pprune, which has already been mentioned as an excellent resource for technical discussion on this. Some pilots have had the same opinion as you Screwloose and have been threatened with being "thread banned" by the mods! :)
Some (simplistic) key facts though:
- the ash is not visible to either the eye or radar
- it is not like sand. It has a lower melting point and it is (partly) this which cause additional damage/blockage to engines
- Michael O'Leary hasn't complained, so it must be bad.
What will be interesting is that the Russians haven't (or hadn't as of midnight Fri) closed their airspace even though they are affected too and are still flying around in it. Be interesting to see how their planes cope.
Last edited by: WobblyDog on Sat 17 Apr 10 at 11:28
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>> What will be interesting is that the Russians haven't (or hadn't as of midnight Fri)
>> closed their airspace even though they are affected too and are still flying around in
>> it. Be interesting to see how their planes cope.
No-one would notice another russian plane crash.
what gets me is what risk assesment took place, when they loaded all the important ploes in one plane.
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>> And at least you don't have to risk hearing the following announcement:
>>
>> "This is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped."
>>
>> news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8622099.stm
>>
A bit off topic but the account of this incident on www.ericmoody.com/ is fascinating!
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Flight ban just been extended to 0100 BST Saturday. BBC breaking news.
MD
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To have five engine failures in one flight is a bit excessive....especially if you only have four engines to start off with.
BBC News 24 interviewed the engineer from that flight yesterday and he was asked if there was any panic in the passengers or crew.
I loved his typical British understated response to the effect of 'One woman passenger did scream but her husband had a sharp word with her and she calmed down' ....... the crew were a bit busy going through the drill trying to restart the engines.... I bet they were.
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Do not hold your breath .
Ryanair have packed up til Monday.
Ban appears to be including Itay soon.
Weather reports seem to indicate the wind will continue in the wrong direction for days.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8626625.stm
This much seems to low down not just at cruise altitudes.
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Any chance of a mod merging all three threads on this topic?
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One of them's stuck in the US on his honeymoon - ah, what a shame (keep on having a great time, PU).
Just a thought - if dear old BA (Baggage in Amsterdam) lose money on every flight, they should be delighted by this situation.
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So, I could get a berth on the QM2 back to the UK on the 29th April for $1300. Should I?
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Yes, go for it! Trip of a lifetime. You may as well extend your hols and make something of the situation you are in.
I calculate that there are approximately 2 million would-be flyers stuck on the ground in your position. The backlog will take weeks to clear!
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At least two BA flights have attempted to fly from the US to the UK during the dust period.
Both have eventually done a U turn and returned to where they started.
I wonder when the USA will come under pressure to help out all their citizens stuck in Europe .
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You may as well! If you're friends are happy for you to stay a bit longer then it would be a nice way of returning. Today's Telegraph is suggesting the ash could be a problem for months! Sod's law says the moment you book, flights return and the Wednesday one you had would be ok.... if you're sneaky you may be able to sell the flight you have for more than you paid for it :-)
Last edited by: teabelly on Sun 18 Apr 10 at 09:15
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Gary Lineker had to undertake a marathon 2,058-mile trek by plane, train and car to get back to London in time to host Match of the Day on Saturday night.
uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/18042010/58/international-football-lineker-2-058-mile-motd-mission.html
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I was too slow, it's on standby only now, and the next one isn't until May! Guess I'm waiting for the planes again then.
Still could be worse, I'm having the weekend with old friends in their lodge in the Poconose Mountains, and spent a lot of yesterday evening in a hot-tub with a beer. Hard life.
Still, would be nice to get back. Apparently there is now a thick layer of ash on the car - should be fun to try and get that off without scratching it.
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Brother and family stuck in Istanbul having been en route back from Egypt. Looking at returning overland if he can organise. Would take 3 days which would appear to be less time than European airspace is going to be shut.
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Friends were in Frankfurt at a trade show for their family company. They picked up a rental car with SatNav to drive home and left Germany at midday on Thursday and got to Manchester via Calais/Dover Fridat afternoon.
The one-way drop off charge was 1,800Euro (plus rental), but they have booked their sales manager to go back this week to dismantle the stand and take the car back!
I want to get to Israel in May - assuming no flights, I thought to drive through Europe to Greece and pick up a ferry to Haifa (without the car though - pity). Alternatively I could get the train to Madrid via Paris and fly to Tel Aviv. Hmmm - lets hope the volcano has stopped erupting by then.
(An idea - planes take off with all engines then fly on one. If it fails, drop down to a lower levels and start the stopped one which should be clean - is that sensible?)
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>> (An idea - planes take off with all engines then fly on one. If it
>> fails drop down to a lower levels and start the stopped one which should be
>> clean - is that sensible?)
No.
An engine restart in flight is an emergency procedure, and is not guaranteed to succeed, so shouldnt be standard operating procedure. Plus you are running an engine at higher thrust for longer which is not good for engine serviceability. High pilot stress when running on one engine. Nervous passengers
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Anyone heard how PU's doing?
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Nope but I reckon he'll have switched to breaststroke by now to save energy......
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he's retired, he's on his honeymoon, he is in the states, and all the flights home have been cancelled.
Damn - I would be so stressed out. (not)
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Astonishingly, I've got lucky. I booked flights for this evening last Friday, and it's turned out to be a good guess. I'm just getting on to a plane for Paris, and the connection to the UK is also supposed to be on time. Result!
See you all back in the UK.
SO.
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>> See you all back in the UK.
If only! Still stuck in San Francisco, although Virgin did get a plane load back yesterday of the people who were supposed to fly back on the 15th, the day before us. Unfortunately tonight's plane is taking back those who were due to fly today (21st), so it's tomorrow at the earliest for us, unless SWMBO's mental state could get us into the 'medical emergency' category... :)
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Virgin have been as good as their word - we were delayed by 23 hrs an 52 minutes - we have been lucky - the call centre operator said we were lucky, airport staff said we were lucky, virgin staff on the plane said we were lucky. Loads of stories of distressed Brits everywhere - including a family in St Petes likely to be delayed for at last two weeks again and rapidly becoming very distressed and running out of money and being unsupported by he US airline they flew with.
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>> unsupported by the US airline they flew with.
You really don't want to fly with a US carrier if you can avoid it, with the possible exception of Jet Blue and Continental. US and United in particular are 2 of the most arrogant and customer unfriendly companies I have ever encountered and that was before any volcano disruptions.
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Don't fly United if you love your guitar....!
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Blimey, I hope it works out for everyone. Turns out my booking seats on yesterday's flight home last Friday was a brilliant plan. Was simple from start to finish - checked in online, transatlantic flight was on time, hop from France was an hour late, but only because their booking system crashed.
I was pretty much the only person on the flight without a horror story. Pure luck of course, but I got home an hour ago and am sitting with a steaming cup of tea.
Good luck to everyone else getting home. SO.
Last edited by: Statistical Outlier on Thu 22 Apr 10 at 14:45
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Welcome Home. Just in time to enjoy some sunshine before the rain arrives this weekend!
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I like rain though - garden certainly needs it ! Apparently we were on the first inbound flight to Manchester (from the US) today - press everywhere. Manchester looked very cold at 7.00am this morning.
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In thats case I waved at you as you decended over glamourous downtown Stockport. We had a frost this morning you know....
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>> Good luck to everyone else getting home. SO.
Finally made it back from San Francisco on Saturday evening, after a 29 hour trek, including a visit to Frankfurt.
With no flight date from Virgin by Thursday evening we decided to ignore their advice(/instructions) to stay put in the hotel, checking out at 6.30 Friday morning and going to the airport in the hope of getting on as standbys. But we were offered guaranteed seats on a Lufthansa flight with a transfer from Frankfurt to Heathrow, so we took that.
Unfortunately, besides only having one movie to choose from instead of 50, when we got to Frankfurt it turned out that Virgin had messed up the booking so we didn't actually have a flight onward to London. After more stress and worry and rushing around, a very helpful Lufthansa lady managed to get us on a later flight, albeit only as standbys.
Fortunately we did get on it, and arrived back in the UK at about 7pm UK time on Saturday evening, or 11am SF time, somewhat frazzled, but relieved. Our luggage caught up with us at 10pm last night.
BTW while waiting at San Francisco we found out that we had been allocated a flight - this Thursday, or 13 days after our original flight date.
Good to be back!
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The last time I "spoke" to you both if us were in the US - Turns out we were incredibly lucky to get back to the UK only 23 hrs and 50 minutes late (see above) - my new wife was due back in work on Saturday and has dropped into the middle of a murder inquiry, so I won't be seeing much of her. ! Glad you made it back - read somewhere today that there were still 9000 UK people in Florida. Crisis.
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>> read somewhere today
>> that there were still 9000 UK people in Florida. Crisis.
I think that's why they were taking so long (subjectively) to get people back from San Francisco - they were concentrating on Florida.
Also it looked like they were taking the approach that they've already 'lost' the delayed people, but best not to delay anyone else. So those scheduled to fly this weekend were taking priority over those scheduled to fly last weekend.
Last edited by: Focus on Mon 26 Apr 10 at 13:46
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Ah well - nice e-mail from Virgin - coughed up my little claim today, nice bonus !
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Got our email a few days ago. It's good that they're paying up, but I'm afraid we don't feel that charitable towards them (Virgin Atlantic rather than Holidays).
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It was Atlantic I was with - no real complaints but maybe I was lucky !
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Stuck in the US - Ted
