How to find out where a flight has been diverted to?

[Darren Wheeler]

Moving plane fulls of passengers to LHR would be a logistic nightmare, especially as Surrey police are saying avoid the M25 where possible.

[Scrooge]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11887715

WOW

We are due to fly out to Vegas on Saturday,if it stops snowing on Friday, will they be able to clear the runway in time. Its a selfish request, because i know a lot of people will have had their plans ruined, but we are going out there to celebrate my wifes 40th.

Any advice would be gratefully received,

Thanks again,

Danny

not sure whether we were/are lucky or not. we flew out on VS15 to Orlando yesterday, leaving the snow for blue skies and sun.

HOWEVER our poor old pooch who was due to fly the same route today has been stuck at LGW all day and is now en route to LHR where he will fly to MIA from tomorrow.

so we have a nice 6 hour return car trip to go get him !!!

We are due to fly out to Vegas on Saturday,if it stops snowing on Friday, will they be able to clear the runway in time. Its a selfish request, because i know a lot of people will have had their plans ruined, but we are going out there to celebrate my wifes 40th.

Any advice would be gratefully received,

Thanks again,

Danny

No one will have a clue until nearer the time - the snow could get worse, it could get better. Keep an eye on the VS website/Facebook page for updates.

[Darren Wheeler]

Reported that Gatwick is now closed until 6am Friday at the earliest.

LGW seem to be updating twitter fairly regularly.

http://twitter.com/gatwick_airport

Is it worth wondering that if Gatwick was still owned by BAA, if it would be open yet or not?

Is it worth wondering that if Gatwick was still owned by BAA, if it would be open yet or not?

Would still be closed. I read somewhere that the new owners spent £1/2m on new equipment as well.

I can see all the reporters having big notes saying

"Gatwick = NOT BAA so don't blame BAA !"

Any airport in the world would be experiencing closures with the volumes of snow at LGW right now.

I'm so glad we got out to LAS on Sunday having seen the weather (and being regularly updated by Dragonbaby) since our departure.We had a load of snow in S. Wales on the Friday which resulted in schools closing etc etc and a 4 hr journey for Mr DL coming home from work on Friday night (usually 1.5hrs)
I hope everyone travelling to/from the UK in the next few days gets to where they need to be without too much inconvenience.
DL

Does anyone know what's happened to the VS 43 leaving from LHR this afternoon on G-VGAL as all info on it seems to have disappeared and flight status now saying cancelled?

[honey lamb]

Does anyone know what's happened to the VS 43 leaving from LHR this afternoon on G-VGAL as all info on it seems to have disappeared and flight status now saying cancelled?

According to Status Updates in the Toolbox above it pushed back at 18:00 and took off at 18:22

I saw this on the LGW website

All of our teams are working around the clock to clear the runway. By lunchtime today we had cleared 150,000 tons of snow. However the area they have to clear is vast and includes 1.8 million square feet of runway space.

That is a phenominal amount of snow and area to clear. I think if they made this more widly known then people would appreciate the situation more.

The VS44 will be departing LAS at 23:00 local time

Does anyone know what's happened to the VS 43 leaving from LHR this afternoon on G-VGAL as all info on it seems to have disappeared and flight status now saying cancelled?

Just gone feet dry, VB.
Don't be too much in a hurry to exchange a sunny 60F for a snowy 20F!

Currently sat in the terminal at MCO. Just had a lovely meal in McCoys and all my drinks were courtesy of VS!!

Talking to ground staff here-the 28 is full tonight, the 76 went out with one spare seat and it's not looking tomorrow if the 16 is cancelled.

As always the ground staff here were fantastic.

Now just waiting to see 'OP land and we should be on our way after midnight.

All credit to VS where it's due

[Neil]

Hope you manage to get back home safely Will. Good to hear that VS have done a good job, I must say I am impressed with them flying empty out of LHR to help get pax back.

Seems that many poor VS passengers haven't been advised what's going on...just one of many posts (from people in Orlando waiting to fly back) on VS's Facebook page >> "come on virgin let us know what the hell is going on !!!!!!!"

do these people have no idea what is going on over here and the complexities of running an airline?

Gatters could well be open but as the roads and trains are so bu@@ered up how do the crew and ground staff get to work to be able to operate the flights?

Friend of mine who works for VS has been working at Swansea took 10 (yes TEN) hours to get back to Crawley and after 4 hours sleep walked to work to answer phones.

To be fair, Joe Public isn't interested in the complexities, and nor should he.

In every disruption, whether it's air sea or rail or road, the one thing guaranteed to get your goat is lack of information. Joe Public is not interested in complexities but at the same time is sympathetic to difficulties if they are kept up to date with what is going on.

Sitting at an airport or station with rows of cancelled services and no explanation is what riles people.

Typed from sunny Cape Town.

Seems that many poor VS passengers haven't been advised what's going on...just one of many posts (from people in Orlando waiting to fly back) on VS's Facebook page >> "come on virgin let us know what the hell is going on !!!!!!!"

do these people have no idea what is going on over here and the complexities of running an airline?

Gatters could well be open but as the roads and trains are so bu@@ered up how do the crew and ground staff get to work to be able to operate the flights?

Friend of mine who works for VS has been working at Swansea took 10 (yes TEN) hours to get back to Crawley and after 4 hours sleep walked to work to answer phones.

To be fair, Joe Public isn't interested in the complexities, and nor should he.

In every disruption, whether it's air sea or rail or road, the one thing guaranteed to get your goat is lack of information. Joe Public is not interested in complexities but at the same time is sympathetic to difficulties if they are kept up to date with what is going on.

Sitting at an airport or station with rows of cancelled services and no explanation is what riles people.

Typed from sunny Cape Town.

To be fair, when this first happened VS did keep passengers up to date as possible using SMS messages, emails, the website, twitter and Facebook.

[mitchja]

If pax have not booked direct with VS, it is very difficult for them to contact these pax as they only hold contact details for direct bookings (and even then, I think this contact data is still only voluntary and not required)

Whilst VS ask for contacts numbers whilst you are abroad, VH certainly don't and will only know which hotel you are staying in.

If pax have not booked direct with VS, it is very difficult for them to contact these pax as they only hold contact details for direct bookings (and even then, I think this contact data is still only voluntary and not required)

Whilst VS ask for contacts numbers whilst you are abroad, VH certainly don't and will only know which hotel you are staying in.

Which is why during the past few days VS have asked all passengers to update their contact details via Manage My Booking - and when booking direct with VS you have to provide at least one contact number.

It's hardly fair to blame VS for lack of communication when they have no direct way of contacting somebody!

And failing that, there are still the website, twitter, Facebook and the contact centres to try.

Unfortunately some holidaymakers deliberately ensure they stay out of contact for the duration.
The first they know of problems is when they turn up at the airport. (they probably don't want to know before!)

Airports are not the easiest of places to get info. when things go wrong. Perhaps check-in desks need a nice big projector screen they can wheel out when required.

Looking from the outside of the problem it does seem that VS have much more info. available and are reacting more quickly than during the ash crisis. Does suggest they are learning y)

It would be great to hear just how things are at the new Swansea contact centre. What a day to start! (any lurkers?)

It's hardly fair to blame VS for lack of communication when they have no direct way of contacting somebody!

And it's not fair to blame airport operators for lack of flight information either if the airlines don't pass on information to them either.

It is looking as if today's VS15/VS16 is cancelled. I would guess that it's due to the fact that usually the inbound VS44 opperates the VS15, however today the VS44 is dues in at 17:01. My guess would be that Virgin would find it easier to cancel the flight till the next day than have to delay the knock-on effects of the rest of their opperations.