V-Flyer

My son is due to flyout to MCO on Wednesday. Latest trackers show that Dorian should have passed North East of Orland by the time he is due to arrive. However, I'm assuming that they won't be able to follow the usual Great Circle route over Greenland, Canada and down the east coast.

Does anyone know how VA usually reroute in cases like this. Will they head inland and then approach MCO from the West or will they follow the Miami / Caribbean routes and head North?

Thanks.

The exact routing of the flights normally depends on the weather & the North Atlantic Tracks, which vary daily to take advantage of the jet-stream.

Most of my flights to Orlando have been on a "normal" routing south of Iceland, over Greenland, Labrador Sea, Newfound Land, Nova Scotia then down the eastern seaboard to Florida.

On one trip the North Atlantic Tracks were very northern and we continued inland to go well west of Ottawa before making the turn south. We flew inland over the USA before returning over the water as part of the final approach into Orlando.

All aircraft will fly the most appropriate route on the day, based on the weather & safety.

This website shows the daily North Atlantic tracks in operation that day, quite interesting
https://flightplandatabase.com/nav/NATS

What may surprise you though is at the flight levels of commercial planes, the effect of the hurricane isn't that great, the jetstream is far stronger. The difference is the hurricane is more turbulent air and the jetstream fast but uniform/smooth so it's still good to avoid. Have a look at
earth.nullschool.net
and set the altitude to 250 hPa (35,000 ft) for a look at the jetstream

~Stewart

Thanks Stewart - My thoughts were more around the last part of the flight as the usual approach into MCO along the NE coast is likely to be in the hurricane track and the descent is normally under way at that point so unlikely to try and fly through or over it.

MCO has just announced their closure at the end of tonight’s flight movements and VS have cancelled the following:
VS75 03SEP19
VS76 03SEP19
VS27 03SEP19
VS28 03SEP19
VS15 03SEP19
VS16 03SEP19

I see that MCOs reason for closure is that the People Movers (monorails) between the gates and the main terminal cannot operate with winds of 40-45mph. Surely the ones at Gatwick work in stronger winds than that through a British winter?

Overnight Dorian seems to have shifted further East so hopefully my son's flight will operate as planned tomorrow and those who have had their flights cancelled can start getting their plans back to normal.