Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Strange.

We can see the flightpath into/out of Gatwick from our house, we sat in the garden this morning and realised that there were no aircraft I the sky at all. Our next door neighbours were in South Africa and had a devil of a job getting a flight home, in fact they had to get different flights on different days, he got back yesterday and she got back this morning. We were due to fly to Portugal tomorrow but our flight was cancelled, I checked the TAP website and they were showing only 4 flights from London, using much smaller aircraft and designated for Portuguese nationals trying to return home. I would hope that all of those flights currently into Heathrow are repatriation aircraft.

It has been suggested that the airlines must keep flying their normal routes, or they will lose those routes. I know nothing of the industry so I don't know if that is the case.

Russia, at the moment, does not have huge problems but Putin has decided to close Russia to international flights 4 hours ago.

Notice how few flights there are over Italy.

Do we presume most of the Aberdeen cluster are oil-related? (And essential/freight to Shetland)

K

Ps .....N22MOG ..... huge amount of freight comes in via Heathrow ...guess a lot of that is still needed.

There are still a lot of planes flying around up there but quite a proportion of the transatlantic stuff does appear to be cargo. There still seems to be an incredible amount of flights over the US. Aberdeen didn’t look particularly bury plane wise when I checked but plenty helicopters which is offshore related, it used to be the busiest heliport in the world, I don’t know if that still applies.

Stay Safe.

I heard the same thing about the slots. To ensure that some aircraft do not fly around empty for this reason, the Lufthansa Group had already submitted an application to the EU a few weeks ago. The request was that all airlines keep their slots even if they do not fly. I do not know the result of this request and I do not know how high the proportion of aircraft movements is for the reason of not losing their slots.

I also didn't appreciate just how much freight the passenger aircraft carry. So that business still continues, even if the flight is all but empty.

I read that nearly half the hold in a passenger flight is commercial cargo.So at the moment the expense of sending freight is expensive.

That would be a whole bucket of daft if it were the case. Just freeze the rota and save risk/pollution/trouble. It does leave the income/companies however but flying empty must be worse in this situation.

Offshore mate saying that the large amount of helicopter traffic at Aberdeen is down to them not stopping in Shetland for quarantine reasons but going direct to and from the rigs from Aberdeen ....instead of five or six choppers landing in Shetland and decanting into one plane flight down they're now all coming to Dyce hence the numbers.

K