Once again it has snowed in England and once again there is a certain amount of chaos for airline passengers, thanks to the airports mainly being at capacity.
News reports have been showing throngs of passengers delayed at London Heathrow Airport thanks to the weather. This is not going to get better anytime in the foreseeable future either.
Airports Are Full
Some of the airports are running at capacity most of the time and this includes London Heathrow and London Gatwick. Both airports have done an excellent job in using all the runway capacity they can to maximise flight movements.
The only problem is that when adverse weather hits, flights are delayed or cancelled as there is no wiggle room to cope with the issues. Each year thousands of passengers are impacted by this.
New Runways Will Come… One Day
At last look, a third runway for London Heathrow has been approved, but so what? It is many years away at this point and once it opens, new slots will be allocated to airlines wanting to add more flights and the airport will be instantly full once again.
Passengers Just Need To Deal With It
Anyone flying during the winter months in Europe generally expect there to be issues. Many of the countries don’t deal very well with snow as they get it fairly infrequently. This leads to delays and cancellations throughout the region.
I have had flights cancelled before, or delayed several hours due to weather and there’s not much else to do but sit and hope you will get a flight out. This is the winter reality for many people.
Overall Thoughts
Airports in England will continue to experience delays during weather events. While it has been recognised that there is a need for more capacity at the main airports, this is not going to arrive for a very long time.
In the mean time, passengers should bone up on their rights to ensure they are getting all compensation due to them under the regulations that apply.
Have you been delayed due to snow? How was that for you? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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London Heathrow image by Konstantin Von Wedelstaedt via Wikimedia Commons.
Its all talk talk.. survey survey, studies studies.. millions of Pounds spent… And in that time, Singapore , Beijing have completed new expansions and entirely new airports. In all honesty, Heathrow is land locked and expansion will come at high prices. Boris’ plan should have gone ahead and built a new airport at the Thames estuary… but again its down to politics and bribes.
The problems is short sighted politics, Year’s wasted on deciding we need one extra runway for London when we are at capacity, then postpone the decision for years, then years to get through planning and building. Both airports need an extra runway now! Living in North West England my preference is to fly from Manchester to Schipol or Dublin. I cannot even fly from Manchester to Gatwick, I have to get the train and that is a pain.
You’re completely correct. The politicians have an excellent capacity for kicking the can down the road when it comes to new runways in south east England. Many people are using Schiphol and Dublin for their onward flights nowadays, which is a shame for the UK, not to mention the environment and all the rest of it. I guess time will tell if something eventually happens. Either way, the current situation is no good. Thanks for the comment!
Totally agree mungo. Ba cutting the Gatwick shuttle from Manchester cut off the nw from any Gatwick flight (effecting ba and virgin… however virgin is constantly expanding their routes from Manchester….. rumour is ba iag in some form will return to Manchester.
There has been agreed a new runway at lhr sometime in the future…. 2020…2030 etc who knows. Hopefully by then Manchester will have been more direct links.