Flightradar24 Thread Part III

smurfjed

Did anyone get to track this? SPACE-X rocket launch over California.

JCX BXC

Aircraft landing in DXB at the moment have held for upwards of 1hr 40minutes due to fog at the airport.

Does not sound fun!

(-for example, EK509 from Mumbai held for over 2hrs 10minutes before landing).

pepe the prawn

Interesting to look at FR24 and not see a single Ryanair in the skies, last flight landed around 1600 or thereabouts I think..

marno21

Tonight's ET500, usually routing ADD-DUB-IAD, will be making a stopover in Shannon instead

KU117 KWI-JFK will also be making its usual daily stop in Shannon tomorrow.

rushfan

marno21 wrote:

Tonight's ET500, usually routing ADD-DUB-IAD, will be making a stopover in Shannon instead

Both Ethiopians refuelled in Shanon last year too.

md323

rushfan wrote: »

Both Ethiopians refuelled in Shanon last year too.

Why is that?

Oops!

Dublin is'nt open.

Fred Swanson

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Noxegon

I wonder if that will ever change. One quick look at Flightradar24 shows most of Europe is open as normal.

Wanderer78

Noxegon wrote:

I wonder if that will ever change. One quick look at Flightradar24 shows most of Europe is open as normal.

I'd rather it didn't, staff deserve holidays to

Noxegon

Wanderer78 wrote: »

I'd rather it didn't, staff deserve holidays to

Irish staff deserve a day off that airport staff in other countries don't get?

Wanderer78

Noxegon wrote:

Irish staff deserve a day off that airport staff in other countries don't get?

Id rather more airports closed as well, I understand staff are required for safety reasons but the world can afford a day off. By opening businesses on Christmas day, it can cause a chain reaction, effectively forcing other businesses to open, this can in turn become the norm, become a normal working day, at normal pay rate. Yes, the world can afford a day off

JCX BXC

Noxegon wrote: »

I wonder if that will ever change. One quick look at Flightradar24 shows most of Europe is open as normal.

Very very far from open as normal. Some airlines simply not operating today, such as Ryanair and virtually all are operating a limited schedule.

While we can 'afford' to stay closed, in the future I can simply see this not happening. We are becoming a multicultural society, filling with cultures who do not celebrate Christmas and sadly things will begin to open to cater for these people.

Noxegon

For what it’s worth I’m actually working today (at a normal rate) as my role requires staffing Monday to Friday all year round. As with all other holidays the time is added to my annual leave, and I could have booked the day off if I’d wanted it on a first come first served basis. I’m happy with that.

I’m quite confident that I’m not the only one who likes being able to take the nine state holidays on days that I choose.

It might be interesting to survey airport staff to see what attitudes to Christmas actually are. The results could be surprising.

Fred Swanson

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martinsvi

JCX BXC wrote: »

Very very far from open as normal. Some airlines simply not operating today, such as Ryanair and virtually all are operating a limited schedule.

While we can 'afford' to stay closed, in the future I can simply see this not happening. We are becoming a multicultural society, filling with cultures who do not celebrate Christmas and sadly things will begin to open to cater for these people.

I don't think the demand for flights on Christmas day is generated from people who don't celebrate Christmas - in fact it's probably quite the opposite - if you've ever lived abroad or have a SO from abroad you will know how difficult it is to visit everybody and keep in touch with the close ones. I've flown on a Christmas day myself once because that was the only way for me to visit people I wanted to see during the festive season.

Many people don't get the 24th off, so the 25th might be their first day off which again might generate demand for travel on that date.

Personally I don't see the cease of operations as a big problem, I can work around it if I have to. Some people might not be as flexible and my sympathies go out to them.

JCX BXC

Shannon is open to airlines who want to operate flights today, yet none (which take on pax at Shannon) have done so.

There was one a few years ago to Poland iirc.

Fred Swanson

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Water John

There are many christian countries that celebrate Christmas Day, but not on the 25th Dec.

JCX BXC

Fred Swanson wrote: »

Is it fully open in the sense that a scheduled airline could operate a flight or is it only Fire and Rescue that are available?

I know Shannon is required to stay open 24/7/365 as a diversionary airport for the north Atlantic.

2 flights operated today, although neither picked up pax.

Ethiopian had their regular fuel stop in Shannon as opposed to Dublin, and Kuwait had their regular flight to JFK. On this flight passengers have to exit the aircraft and clear security in terminal.

Vast majority of the airport is opened, if not practically all.

fr336

I have sympathy with both sides of the closing for Christmas argument but on balance just have this nagging feeling of "Wow, it's one day. 24 hours. Can society not just stop for one day? Do people have to be using services every day of the year?" People clearly wouldn't be able to cope if closures were extended to St Stephen's Day too.

JCX BXC

fr336 wrote: »

I have sympathy with both sides of the closing for Christmas argument but on balance just have this nagging feeling of "Wow, it's one day. 24 hours. Can society not just stop for one day? Do people have to be using services every day of the year?" People clearly wouldn't be able to cope if closures were extended to St Stephen's Day too.

If that was the tradition, then people would cope.

Go back 80 years, little was open on a Sunday. Even in nowadays Germany, supermarkets are rarely open on a Sunday and you're often limited to petrol stations.

fr336

JCX BXC wrote: »

fr336 wrote: »

I have sympathy with both sides of the closing for Christmas argument but on balance just have this nagging feeling of "Wow, it's one day. 24 hours. Can society not just stop for one day? Do people have to be using services every day of the year?" People clearly wouldn't be able to cope if closures were extended to St Stephen's Day too.

If that was the tradition, then people would cope.

Go back 80 years, little was open on a Sunday. Even in nowadays Germany, supermarkets are rarely open on a Sunday and you're often limited to petrol stations.

Yeah but this isn't the 80s. In the internet generation people want everything all the time. I appreciate the irony of me saying this here...

Fred Swanson

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NH2013

You can be sure if Airlines saw money to be made they'd be banging down the door of the DAA to open up on Christmas day, there's just not enough demand there at the minute to open the airport profitably,perhaps in 10-15 years there might be, but that decision will be made by each airline on a yearly basis if they think they can make money, and if not they'll just pair back their flights to nothing as is the case now.

Airlines are business, and are under no obligations to provide a service if they don't think it would make money, even if that may inconvenience people, or people may feel offended that they're forced to observe some other religions holy day, if people want an airline to run a service regardless of cost then we need to go back to the days of subsidised state owned airlines.


As I posted on another site:

It's uneconomical to keep the airport open as there would be very few flights, Ryanair stop flying around 3pm on Chrstmas Eve and don't start again until about 1pm on St. Stephens Day, Aer Lingus also don't operate as many flights on either the 24th or 26th, their flight schedule is significantly paired back due to lack of demand, the same with Stobart, CityJet and BA, people just don't want to travel in great numbers over these days to warrant putting on flights, they'd be loss making.

With that in mind, the DAA couldn't justify opening the Airport on the 25th just for the 5-6 airlines that might want to run flights (EK, EY, LH, DL, AA) if EI and FR et al all don't want to run their own flights, as they'd have to bring in a full set of workers to run the airport from security teams, baggage handlers, marshallers, ops teams, ATC, Fire Services, Fuellers, Checkin Staff, Engineers, de-icers, push back crews etc, and those 5 flights couldn't possibly cover the cost of bringing in all those staff, heating and lighting the terminals, lighting the airfield etc.

If they offered to those airlines to open the airport on the 25th on the condition that the airlines paid all the costs I'm sure the airlines would balk at the idea, as there's no way there'd even be enough demand to fill their own flights profitably, never mind footing the bill for opening the terminals and airfield.

You could bet your last euro if there was money to be made the airlines would be screaming out to have the airport open, but the numbers just don't add up. Aer Lingus and Ryanair have access to the figures and know how much it would cost to bring in people for the day. The comercial departments know even if there was enough demand to operate say 3-4 Heathrow flights, when you add in the cost of getting staff in to cover those three to four flights and turning the lights and heating on in the airport, it would be massively loss making.

It just doesn't make economic sense to open the airport, it's nothing to do with tradition, religion or unions, just pure cold cash.

smurfjed

I'm sure that if you went to the airport today you would find the lights and heating turned on regardless of the fact that its closed.

Noxegon

It's a lot more than five or six airlines.

Just looking at FR24 right now, you've got flights from AA, AC, AF, AY, BA, BE, DL, DY, EK, ET, EY, LH, LX, KL, OB, QR, SK, TK, and UA in the air. In fact it doesn't look like any airline serving DUB is grounded today (aside from EI and FR).

Yes, without EI and FR it'll be a quiet day – but I would assume the above would be more than enough to break even.

Fred Swanson

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rushfan

Fred Swanson wrote:

Is it fully open in the sense that a scheduled airline could operate a flight or is it only Fire and Rescue that are available?

Dub has F &R services up to Cat 7 today, in case the Rescue chopper is required.

JCX BXC

Fred Swanson wrote: »

Even in Germany you find supermarkets open on a Sunday. Times have moved on.

Very few Fred, only in the bigger areas. When I lived in Germany a few years ago for a few months the local Lidl and shopping center (exc restaurants) were closed on Sundays.