LHR-MCO???????

Question???? Am aware of the emergency at Gatwick Airport yesterday regarding VS027 A330 (Beauty Queen)... Checking the VS027 flight for 11.15am this morning,it appears it is leaving from LHR-MCO at 17.25pm,It is a A340 LHR Fleet (Mystic Maiden)WHY is this flight leaving from LHR and not Gatwick??? ?|


Thank god all fellow Virgin's on Beauty Queen are all safe and thank you to the Pilot/Cabin crew ^)

[Neil]

Today's VS27 was cancelled, and merged in to the VS127 (yesterdays rescheduled 27) and today's 15, which was delayed until a 6pm departure.

I see the info on the flight status page on here, but that could either just be an error, or they could be sending the a/c out empty to help get the pax from yesterdays 28 home. It is the end of the Easter period and flights back from MCO are pretty full currently, so merging 3 flights in to 2 might not have been possible on the returns.

Thank you for clearing that up for me Neil

Also the 340-600 is too long to go on any of the gates at lgw so would have had to be boarded at a remote stand

Just out interest due to fly v27 next week which was supposed to be an airbus now one of them is out of action I suppose my chances of an airbus are slim unless the M Rouge airbus is due at GTW next week as part of its normal swap from Manchester.

Any ideas if the a340 is to big for GTW it's unlikely to replace Beauty Queen unless they run it from a remote stand.

Indeed "Mystic Maiden" G-VMEG has operated LHR-MCO empty as VS27P. She will return from MCO later this evening to LGW arriving tomorrow morning. The return flights from MCO are solid as Neil rightly says because of the Easter holidays. so an extra aircraft was needed to help bring back returning passengers.

As you would expect after the easter break the outbound flights to MCO today were very light so three flights merged into one on a 744 was possible.


Jon

[Neil]

Yes, luckily for VS the outbound to MCO are light now after the Easter rush, so being able to cancel today's 27 and merge it will have helped them massively get back to some sort of normal schedule.

Qatari used to operate an A346 into Gatwick...but that was North terminal.