DUB closed 15:00 - 18:00 5/2/09

sunnyjim

Absolutely raging.

Looking at the forecast, do you think it might be closed tomorrow evening? I'm off to Paris with Ryanair. Pray for me boardsies. I wish I still had my DAA airside pass, try to commandeer myself a plane if I have too!

Anyone here affected by todays, bar the guy who started the ryanair service thread?

Foggy43

This weather kicked off here in London last Sunday evening. Heathrow still has not fully recovered from this. More snow is expected tomorrow Friday for about 3 hours at LHR 0900 to 1200. We will all have to listen out for weather warnings from both Irish and UK agencies.

robinph

They are now saying 7pm tonight for their Dublin reopening guestimate. I'm starting to loose hope though as most inbound flights seem to have already been cancelled for today.

jhegarty

Anyone have information on tomorrow ?

I am scheduled on the 7am to Barcelona.

highlydebased

Alot diverted into Shannon today. Good fun.

skybus

basically every flight after 11:30am today has been cancelled, so tomorow will be jammers with people trying to get out again

It's what one calls an operational nightmare. All airlines will now have aircraft with crews out of hours dotted around the country, and not back in Dublin where they are needed tonight. Some of these are either in Cork, Belfast or Shannon. I believe Ryanair even diverted some to Knock and an Aer Arann flight from Blackpool even ended up in Donegal of all places. These aircraft are needed in Dublin to operate tomorrow's flights. An educated guess will mean that there will be many cancellations again tomorrow by all airlines while they try to recover from todays proceedings.

Húrin

How do they manage this kind of thing in Scandinavian airports?

Red Sleeping Beauty

Húrin wrote: »

How do they manage this kind of thing in Scandinavian airports?

Good question. How exactly do countries who have regular ice and/or snow deal with this? Is Dublin airport/the pilots/planes unable to deal with these situations ?

I'm flying next week at 9.30am and like most people I'm quite nervous. Does that Hudson river landing have any affect on decisions?

Fratton Fred

Anyone know what the place is like today? i see there are a number of delays/cancellations, but is it starting to get back to normal?

blobert

There seems to be a lot more delays today.

I'm due to fly to Nice at 7:30am tomorrow. Is there anyway to know in advance if this is likely to be delayed. I'd be delighted to fly 4 hours later but not if I have to sit in the airport from 5:30 onwards.

Ryanair have a flight tracker service, is this accurate in predicting delays? The Dublin Airport website gives no info on how delayed flights are, only on when they have departed.

No snow due in Dublin today, but it's meant to be frosty tonight. Perhaps they'll be able to get back on time today?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

FlutterinBantam

Only advice I can give is get to the airport at the appointed time.

In these situations it'd impossible to predict.

Forecast is for heavy freeze tonight and the apron and taxy areas will be the problem.There will be probably some de-ice delays.

Good points are that you have an 0730 start in other words you shouldn't have to wait for an aircraft to come in to operate it.

have a good flight.

FlutterinBantam

alan dunne 27 wrote: »

Good question. How exactly do countries who have regular ice and/or snow deal with this? Is Dublin airport/the pilots/planes unable to deal with these situations ?

I'm flying next week at 9.30am and like most people I'm quite nervous. Does that Hudson river landing have any affect on decisions?

The clue is in the question regular snow and ice.

For economic reasons,I'm sure Dublin airport will not invest heavily and expensively in a huge array of equipment that might be used once or twice a year.It just does not make economic sense.
They have enough equipment to cope with most snow outcomes we get here in Ireland.Same goes for de-icing equipment,used by the airlines.

Hudson river watering:D would have no influence as that was bird related.

Hope that answers some of your questions.

Airports in the snow zone get the return from this equipment as it's used more ofter throughout the winter.

robinph

The likes of Heathrow or Dublin should be able to deal with the actually very small amount of snow that we've had recently much better than they currently do. The excuse of not having the equipment to deal with it can be used by the likes of Boris Johnson when he's going on about it not being a worth while investment for London to buy such equipment for a once every 20 years event just to keep some busses running. But for a major airport I don't think they should be able to use that excuse. They are not trying to win re-election every few years so what they spend can be justified as much more long term cost, but the amounts that they will loose from just being shut one day should be enough to invest in a few more snow ploughs to bolt onto the front of some trucks that they already have, even if they do only get used once in a blue moon.

sionnach

I was sitting on a ryanair plane for 3 hours this morning waiting for DAA to de-ice the tarmac around the plane to allow refuelling. Never happened, flight cancelled. So much for my trip to Stockholm.

FlutterinBantam

robinph wrote: »

The likes of Heathrow or Dublin should be able to deal with the actually very small amount of snow that we've had recently much better than they currently do. The excuse of not having the equipment to deal with it can be used by the likes of Boris Johnson when he's going on about it not being a worth while investment for London to buy such equipment for a once every 20 years event just to keep some busses running. But for a major airport I don't think they should be able to use that excuse. They are not trying to win re-election every few years so what they spend can be justified as much more long term cost, but the amounts that they will loose from just being shut one day should be enough to invest in a few more snow ploughs to bolt onto the front of some trucks that they already have, even if they do only get used once in a blue moon.

You have good points there.

However I think Dublin Airport, like the HSE, should be able to do better with the resources at their disposal,rather than throwing money at the problem.

The same problems always spring up in situations like this.

taxiways and runways can be cleared but the apron area is all iced up which is almost as effective in stopping operations.

Red Sleeping Beauty

blobert wrote: »

There seems to be a lot more delays today.

I'm due to fly to Nice at 7:30am tomorrow. Is there anyway to know in advance if this is likely to be delayed. I'd be delighted to fly 4 hours later but not if I have to sit in the airport from 5:30 onwards.

Ryanair have a flight tracker service, is this accurate in predicting delays? The Dublin Airport website gives no info on how delayed flights are, only on when they have departed.

No snow due in Dublin today, but it's meant to be frosty tonight. Perhaps they'll be able to get back on time today?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

You could check in online and keep up to date with the delays via the website, ringing the airport/airline or if you want to get serious listen in to the Air Traffic Control Tower . I'm not sure if that last one would help.
The thing with delayed flights is, just because a flight is delayed say from 12:00 to 17:00 and you decide "Ah sure the flight's not till 5, I'll wait till about 4 to go the airport"... there's nothing stopping the flight taking off as soon as it's ready. Delayed times I think are just a maximum "Your flight will be delayed until" and not that accurate as to when it'll take off . It's a pain in the arse , I know

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

The clue is in the question regular snow and ice.

For economic reasons,I'm sure Dublin airport will not invest heavily and expensively in a huge array of equipment that might be used once or twice a year.It just does not make economic sense.
They have enough equipment to cope with most snow outcomes we get here in Ireland.Same goes for de-icing equipment,used by the airlines.

Hudson river watering:D would have no influence as that was bird related.

Hope that answers some of your questions.

Airports in the snow zone get the return from this equipment as it's used more ofter throughout the winter.

I disagree. Ireland gets ice, we've a cold country - not year round freezing but cold - they really should be able to handle this better in my opinion.
What is the problem though ? Are planes not able to take off in the snow or is Dublin airport unable to maintain the runway in snowy/icey conditions ? And how difficult is it to do that anyway ?

sionnach wrote: »

I was sitting on a ryanair plane for 3 hours this morning waiting for DAA to de-ice the tarmac around the plane to allow refuelling. Never happened, flight cancelled. So much for my trip to Stockholm.

That's ****, sorry to hear that

highlydebased

If there's runway contamination it makes for a difficult takeoff-sluggish acceleration in some cases, poor braking etc

Alicano

absolute nightmare in there today lads.
we(people in green) made a total balls of just about everything today.
no intelligent decisions made by those in charge.
filling flights only to cancel them,create new flights,move people from other flights and leave some original passengers without a seat offerning flights tomorrow or a refund??..embarrassing.:mad:
being in a uniform was like being in the zoo with fillet steaks attached to you!
sorry to all effected..cant say it'l be any better tomorrow.
as for daa and no de-icing/gritting etc is a joke..all carparks and walkways completly snowed over..very dangerous to public and inexcusable in other countries.
apologies again..we mean well:(

highlydebased

Its also now been suggested that the DAA do not have the correct de-ice for this level of snow- they only have pottasium acetate which is only suitable for frost/light snow- not what we got so the apron etc is only freezing back over again. I don't think the airport have much de-icing equipment either which certainly doesnt help.

irishatco

From what I've heard nobody covered themself in glory these past few days, but some of the decision making from the DAA was particularly shambolic. They closed the airport to arrivals from 0800 until 0915 this morning then with traffic holding anticipating clearance to commence approach decided to prolong the closure at 0913...:eek:

Then they asked for a zero flow rate to 1030 to allow for departures to get off the ground and free up some stands, then rang at 1030 to extend that for another hour...at that stage practically every aircraft flight planned to land between 1030 and 1130 was in the air and en-route.

Aircraft landing were left sitting on taxiways holding for stands to become available (I'm told the French rugby team spent an hour waiting, hope they don't exact revenge tomorrow), aircraft looking to pushback faced long delays as long inbound flows met long outbound flows, coupled with extra aircraft towing to help free stands up again (in a lot of cases towing to the west apron against the inbound flow of aircraft)

Good day to be off work...:cool:

Red Sleeping Beauty

Alicano wrote: »

absolute nightmare in there today lads.
we(people in green) made a total balls of just about everything today.
no intelligent decisions made by those in charge.
filling flights only to cancel them,create new flights,move people from other flights and leave some original passengers without a seat offerning flights tomorrow or a refund??..embarrassing.:mad:
being in a uniform was like being in the zoo with fillet steaks attached to you!
sorry to all effected..cant say it'l be any better tomorrow.
as for daa and no de-icing/gritting etc is a joke..all carparks and walkways completly snowed over..very dangerous to public and inexcusable in other countries.
apologies again..we mean well:(

Your post is lacking punctuation. Do you work for Aer Lingus ? DAA ?
I can't imagine how hard it is for the men and women working on the ground . Ye have my sympathy. I'm flying to Glasgow next week and I'm expecting to be cancelled (which is the second worst case scenario). Worst case - I'll be left waiting for the whole day. I'm flying at 9:30, I can't see the plane being in the air within 2hours of that. I'll just bring music, get a magazine and drink to be honest. This obviously isn't an option for people flying business, people on holidays from work, people trying to visit friends/family or any other more serious travel.

It's a shambles , an utter disgrace.

Neon-Circles wrote: »

Its also now been suggested that the DAA do not have the correct de-ice for this level of snow- they only have pottasium acetate which is only suitable for frost/light snow- not what we got so the apron etc is only freezing back over again. I don't think the airport have much de-icing equipment either which certainly doesnt help.

Not one bit surprised. Not in the slightest.