Door5right From United Kingdom, joined Dec 2005, 707 posts, RR: 18 Posted (5 years 9 months 3 weeks 1 day ago) and read 17178 times:
Anyone interested in the chaos and appalling management of LHR these days may enjoy the following tale of a delayed Emirate flight from Dubai to LHR being diverted to Gatwick - only no-one told the pilot who landed at LHR only to then have to tell the pas they weren't getting off but were now about to have a fifteen minute hop across to LGW!
Full story eloquently narrated by Simon Calder in todays Independent newspaper at link below
Antonovman From United Kingdom, joined Mar 2001, 719 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (5 years 9 months 3 weeks 23 hours ago) and read 17070 times:
Quoting Door5right (Thread starter): Anyone interested in the chaos and appalling management of LHR these days may enjoy the following tale of a delayed Emirate flight from Dubai to LHR being diverted to Gatwick - only no-one told the pilot who landed at LHR only to then have to tell the pas they weren't getting off but were now about to have a fifteen minute hop across to LGW!
I think that should read appalling management of EK operations. Should it have been the job of LHR management to call the captain on the radio or send him an ECARS message telling him to divert to LGW ? I think not ! EK Ops job that
Gilesdavies From United Kingdom, joined Dec 2003, 2880 posts, RR: 1 Reply 4, posted (5 years 9 months 3 weeks 23 hours ago) and read 17058 times:
Great story and sums up the absolute mess London airports are in!
I like the way Simon Calder tells the story, but do not believe for one minute he was on that flight! He is always coincidently caught up in these problem flights.
Sanjet From Canada, joined Mar 2005, 180 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (5 years 9 months 3 weeks 23 hours ago) and read 16931 times:
I just feel like there's more to this story. I mean pilots usually call their company OPS at the approaching airport to advise them of their ETA. Feels weird that they wouldn't at least tell the pilots that they must divert to Gatwick?!?
Leezyjet From United Kingdom, joined Oct 2001, 4041 posts, RR: 55 Reply 9, posted (5 years 9 months 3 weeks 23 hours ago) and read 16884 times:
Quote: Heathrow's ground handlerswere stood down.
Thats rubbish, I know who does Emirates ramp handling, and certainly the ramp staff would have been there until after midnight, so the a/c could have been offloaded. Maybe the customer services staff had been sent home, but I doubt that either.
Quote: 9.40pm: Touchdown at Heathrow
The latest take off time for the noise curfew at LHR is 23:29 to be lined up at the end of the runway for the ban to come in at 23:30, so I don't understand why they couldn't have turned the a/c round in that time, unless "facts" have conveniently been missed out by Mr. Calder.
Lets get one thing straight, this has absolutely NOTHING to do with the BAA or Heathrow Airport Ltd (not often I'll back them up), it is purely down to Emirates themselves.
As the situation unfolded, and they found the a/c HAD actually landed at LHR, the best thing for them to do would have been to revise the plan of action, and offload the a/c at LHR, then if they really needed to, position the a/c empty to LGW, but this would have all depended on crew hours. Although hindsight is a wonderful thing, and coming from an Airline Ops background, I know how even the best thought out plans can go drastically wrong if one minor thing is forgotten, or something else comes along and screws the plan up - both of which happened in this case !!.
Not a huge fan of Simon Calder. For such a well travelled, travel journalist he often gets things very wrong or conveniently misses out vital facts to make the company he chooses to slate this week appear stupid/rubbish/incompetant - delete as applicable. Heck in the 2nd paragraph he can't even spell Gatwick !!
Quote: your boarding pass says Gatwich
"She Rolls, 45 knots, 90, 135, nose comes up to 20 degrees, she's airborne - She flies, Concorde Flies"
LHRBlueSkies From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2007, 493 posts, RR: 2 Reply 10, posted (5 years 9 months 3 weeks 22 hours ago) and read 16637 times:
Quoting Sanjet (Reply 8): I just feel like there's more to this story.
Yup, I can smell the fish from here!
Quoting Leezyjet (Reply 9): Lets get one thing straight, this has absolutely NOTHING to do with the BAA or Heathrow Airport Ltd (not often I'll back them up), it is purely down to Emirates themselves.
Bang on leezy! This had nothing to do with how Heathrow operates, as late flights are often allowed to arrive late, they just can't always turnaround and depart late as well.
Could it be that EK wanted the a/c in LGW for the next day, planned the whole thing badly, and hence the pile of poo wriiten by Mr.Caulder?!
flying is the safest form of transport - until humans get involved!
JustPlanes From United States of America, joined Apr 2006, 868 posts, RR: 0 Reply 11, posted (5 years 9 months 3 weeks 21 hours ago) and read 16485 times:
Shame on EMIRATES for doing this to the inbound LHR pax! There is no excuse for that.
If they were already on the ground at Heathrow they should have at least let the pax disembark.. then ferried the a/c empty to Gatwick.
I also wonder what the fuel situation was when that aircraft landed at Gatwick.
LHRBlueSkies From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2007, 493 posts, RR: 2 Reply 12, posted (5 years 9 months 3 weeks 21 hours ago) and read 16453 times:
Quoting JustPlanes (Reply 11): I also wonder what the fuel situation was when that aircraft landed at Gatwick.
What do you mean? I'm sure they would have refuelled the a/c with sufficient to get to LGW and any diversion point... they may have been badly organised, but corner-cutting is not an EK issue!
flying is the safest form of transport - until humans get involved!
Vasu From United Kingdom, joined Apr 2005, 3761 posts, RR: 0 Reply 13, posted (5 years 9 months 3 weeks 21 hours ago) and read 16443 times:
That was a very interesting read!
But those poor passengers... the ones on the plane... I bet they wondered why they couldn't just deploy an emergency slide and quickly drop them off while they were at LHR!
Ryanair737 From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 14, posted (5 years 9 months 3 weeks 21 hours ago) and read 16408 times:
Simon Calder talks out of his arse most of the time, but yes he was definitely on the flight because last Sunday morning he rang into Radio Five Live at around 0100 in the morning, I was listening. I like the way he always mentions the "Pilot" when actually there is two people flying the machine, somebody should tell him that.
MCOflyer From United States of America, joined Jun 2006, 8552 posts, RR: 14 Reply 15, posted (5 years 9 months 3 weeks 21 hours ago) and read 16274 times:
DL767captain From United States of America, joined Mar 2007, 2539 posts, RR: 0 Reply 17, posted (5 years 9 months 3 weeks 20 hours ago) and read 16165 times:
I don't understand, how did he land at lhr if he was diverted wouldn't some one at lhr have told him when they were bringing him in? And if they were already on the ground why would they leave
If he was being diverted, it would upon his company orders, or the airports. LHR was not shut to arriving a/c at that time, and air traffic would not send a flight anywhere else without a refiled flight plan from the EK ops dept.
This whole story just smacks of inconsistantcies..
flying is the safest form of transport - until humans get involved!
Indy From United States of America, joined Jan 2005, 4368 posts, RR: 9 Reply 19, posted (5 years 9 months 3 weeks 20 hours ago) and read 16108 times:
This is just a guess from someone who does not work for an airline. It seems to me the diversion was the brainchild of the airline and not the airport. It seems the airline wanted the diversion so they could do their 2 hour turnaround without having to deal with the noise restrictions. It seems LHR had no problem with them landing otherwise they wouldn't have been given clearance to land. It seems the airline figured out their problem after they landed that they had moved to the other airport. I doubt its LHR's problem to know that the airline decided to move its passengers. I could be wrong. But this just seems like it is all on the airline.
LHRBlueSkies From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2007, 493 posts, RR: 2 Reply 21, posted (5 years 9 months 3 weeks 20 hours ago) and read 16070 times:
Quoting Indy (Reply 19): so they could do their 2 hour turnaround without having to deal with the noise restrictions.
a rule of thumb is, if you speak to the airport in advance, they are normally pretty accommodating in letting you break the curfew, because they don't want 300+ pax stranded at their airport overnight.
flying is the safest form of transport - until humans get involved!
Boeing77W From United Kingdom, joined May 2007, 156 posts, RR: 0 Reply 22, posted (5 years 9 months 3 weeks 20 hours ago) and read 15978 times:
Quoting Ryanair737 (Reply 20): What do you expect, Simon Calder wrote it.
He should stick to writing about countries, period.
I agree with you here, this isn't the first time I've read an article by him which is full of holes and in-terms of knowledge on BAA and regulations etc. could have been written by a 10 year old.
"For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards..."
VV701 From United Kingdom, joined Aug 2005, 6618 posts, RR: 17 Reply 24, posted (5 years 9 months 3 weeks 20 hours ago) and read 15576 times:
Quoting Door5right (Thread starter): Anyone interested in the chaos and appalling management of LHR these days may enjoy the following tale of a delayed Emirate flight from Dubai to LHR being diverted to Gatwic
Quoting Gilesdavies (Reply 4): Great story and sums up the absolute mess London airports are in!
Quoting DL767captain (Reply 17): I don't understand, how did he land at lhr if he was diverted wouldn't some one at lhr have told him when they were bringing him in? And if they were already on the ground why would they leave
You all need to read the story. The aircraft was very late leaving Dubai because EK had loaded it too heavily for the ambient temperature. Bad management by EK or BAA? Not BAA!
The aircraft was going to arrive too late to avoid the government enforced night curfew at LHR for the return flight. Was this the fault of EK management or BAA? Obviously EK.
EK bussed the passengers for the return flight from LHR to LGW before the revised ETA of the flight from DXB to beat the LHR curfew. Clearly EK management's and not BAA's decision.
EK failed to tell the EK pilot to divert to LGW. It is also clear that since EK management do not communicate directly with LHR ATC that we should flame not EK management but LHR ATC.
So EK management made a whole series of blunders and it is all down to BAA!
LHR and BAA are not the greatest performers in the world but those criticising them need to make sure they have at least read the thread and its contents before they get their flame guns out and this includes Door5right who clearly had not read what he posted when he started this thread with:
Quoting Door5right (Thread starter): Anyone interested in the chaos and appalling management of LHR these days may enjoy the following tale
So he comes out of this as badly as EK does. Will he apologise for flaming BAA and misleading so many of you? I doubt it. But we will see.
25 AirTranTUS: I don't understand the significance of this quote. Will the taxi passenger have to pay for the travel between LGW and LHR and back, even though they
26 Ikramerica: how does anyone arrive at blame for BAA for this? It's all EK's fault, 100%. Diverting a plane to LGW was a choice by EK due to a total F-up at DXB (w
27 JustPlanes: OK but in that case how do explain the fact that they would have sat there for more than half an hour but been unable to offload the pax/bags... that
28 Leezyjet: The passengers should have demanded to get off the a/c. If the airline refused, then they could technically be accused of holding you hostage against
29 Ikramerica: Yep. Because this was not a weather diversion, but one specifically for the benefit of EK, they really had no right to take you against your will aft
30 Qantasguy: So why did LHR ATC not have anything to say to the Captain about his approach to the airport? Do ATC allow just anyone to land if they radio a request
31 Door5Right: I am not saying this is directly BAA's fault. But surely it does seem extraordinary an aircraft lands at the airport it was originally destined for,
32 Leezyjet: As far as ATC would be concerned, the flight plan destination is LHR, and unless the flight plan is re-filed with LGW as the destination, they would b
33 EK156: I am going to ask some pilots in EK about this flight cause this is weird as hell!!! But I have to say that if BAA were informed about the diversion t
34 VV701: Flight EK005 was not "just anyone". It was a flight scheduled to land at LHR. It was also a flight where the Captain had filed a flight plan naming L
35 EKSkycargo370: I was on duty that night,all I can is it is a total embarassment!
36 UAL-Fan: And here I thought completely messed up air travel was unique to the U.S. Nice to hear other Countries are sharing in our chaos!
37 LHRBlueSkies: understatement of the year!!!! And as we have said, the a/c landed well before curfew, so could have been turned around, and if they had spoken to th
38 Emirates773ER: Did the passengers get compensated?
39 Leezyjet: BAA and ATC are 2 completely seperate companies. ATC is owned and operated by NATS, National Air Traffic Services which used to be government owned,
40 Theginge: As has been said above ATC will only be aware of diversions if the flight plan is refiled, if EK ops don;t tell them then they won;t know so the airc
41 BoeingBoy: Totally mis-leading. The flight was not diverted, it landed exactly where it was destined. Whatever happened after landing at Heathrow is a totally di
42 Cumulus: What really annoys me is people like Simon Calder are self appointed "experts" at all things relating to travel, he's not. Bit like Jeremy Clarkson an
43 Trintocan: I actually know somebody who was on that flight, he was returning to the UK from India and told me the story about the plane landing at LHr and then d
44 NorthstarBoy: the one thing i don't get is, why inconvenience two sets of passengers? why not unload the heathrow bound passengers, their baggage and cargo at heath
45 ADXMatt: Thing of the past. ACARS send a message automatically to the ops printer with ETA, WCHR, UMNR etc. I don't know about LHR but some others like SNA wi
46 VV701: My assumption is that the LHR EK staff and sub contractors had all gone home. They, unlike its Captain, had been told the aircraft was diverting to L
47 Leezyjet: Most wouldn't have been on OVERtime, they would have been on normal time, as the a/c is a normal regular scheduled flight, so the staff would be ther
48 WunalaYann: I will contribute my modest and point to this very interesting comment. The split between ATC and airport management probably has a role in the commu
49 9VSIO: LOL When I first read Kaittak's post, I thought he meant air traffic! Hence I got very confused by your reply, 777STL. I fail to see how this event s
50 HowSwedeitis: "I think we're going by road..." LOL!!! What a terrible ordeal for both the inbound, and outbound PAX on that aircraft.
51 Ebs757: That's ridicules on EK's part. Ive seen trucks pull up to aircraft to hand the pilots paper work out on the taxi way but they couldn't stop, get stair
52 CXfirst: Not traffic to the airport, but the traffic in the air landing at LGW, and for the departure from LHR. Interesting story, If I was on that flight (in
53 HummingBird: Flight EK005 had promised a welcome escape from dry-roasted Dubai. The afternoon sun threatened to melt the city, with the temperature climbing to 44C
54 GARUDAROD: This reminds me of an incident many years ago with PeoplExpress at CVG. I was the night manager for the handling agent. We were advised that the last
55 WunalaYann: Sure. A plane with a clear flight path takes off from DXB heading for LHR. Somehow upon landing the crew is told that they were/are supposed to land
56 MHG: Although it´s rediculouson EK´s side to let the flight leave DXB so heavy under these circumstances i think it was some sort of gambling with slots.
57 9VSIO: Don't airline dispatch tell LHR Ground the a/c's gate well in advance? How was ATC supposed to know anything was wrong before issuing taxi instructio
58 OtnySASLHR: No chance at LHR - it used to be the case that in exceptional circumstances that a flight would be granted dispensation to operate during "Curfew Hou
59 VV701: The aircraft might have been on a 'normal regular scheduled flight' but it had been diverted to LGW by the airline's management. Although it was runn
60 Nzrich: Yes but i have to say its the first time i have heard of a airline flying passengers to their destination landing and then flying them away from thei
61 OtnySASLHR: Actually - the airline was contracted to carry passengers to London and in fact were diembarked at London! LGW is a London Airport. However, having s
62 Leezyjet: OK don't believe me then, where do you work again ?. I actually work at LHR in T3, I think I know what I'm talking about. Unlike some on this site, I
63 LHRBlueSkies: Err, yes chance, provided you give them sufficient notice, and all the night quote for the week hasn't been used up. Err, as mentioned above - Yes Ch
65 VV701: Thank you for your courteous and polite comments. I have given my suggested reasons as to why EK did not let the passengers on EK005 disembark at LHR
66 Leezyjet: Thats because I cannot think of a logical reason why they kept them on the a/c based on what facts we do know. As I said in my earlier replies, the r
67 OtnySASLHR: I am surmising that the original EK006 departure and therefore departure slot was cancelled. Catering would have been shipped to LGW by road as it wo
68 OtnySASLHR: I don't know VV701 - and I object to your "Trash" remark. My comments, as always, are based on 45 years experience in operations/despatch at LGW and
69 XXXX10: There is something that I don't understand here. Wouldn't one of the pilots have to disembark to do a walk-around, if this is the case then it must ha
70 9VSIO: I doubt that they would need one. In some quick-turnaround carriers, the mechs perform the walkabout, Don't know how it works with EK. Even so, it wo
71 WunalaYann: Hmm, sorry but why are you quoting my username? And don't you think this is a bit, hmm, paradoxical at a time of airline paranoia? There basically is
72 OtnySASLHR: The flight was not "flying wherever it pleases" it was flying according to filed flt plan - otherwise ATC would have directed it LGW. It would seem t
73 9VSIO: I believe he quoted your name because he felt that you seemed to completely miss the point of his post :P Nope, because airline security is rather dif
74 WunalaYann: And the funny thing is that I was not referring to his post. I confess that I had not even read it. Buddy, if I minded being picked on I wouldn't spe
75 Leezyjet: ha ha, that explains it then !! You had asked things I had already tried to answer which is why I'd quoted you !!. LOL !!.
76 9VSIO: Precisely the attitude that is needed on here! Welcome to my RR
77 Nzrich: Actually no the contract between the customer and the airline would of been LONDON LHR as the ticket states .. Even thou the airline still delivered
78 WunalaYann: Yeah, welcome to me, mate... My life. I appreciate your effort and perseverence in trying to make me see the light when I am obviously much too busy
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