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What are normally busy airports like Heathrow like at the moment? Virtually empty or steadily getting busier?
Heathrow almost completely dead at 8am this morning. Coffee shops and M&S still open though.
Beginning of January Stansted was really quiet. Barely any food places open at 8am, the usual shopping outlets were closed (fags, booze and perfume were available).
Belfast International everywhere was closed from 5:30pm last flight was at 8.
Ryan now flying every other day to Northern Ireland, as are EasyJet. Passenger numbers must be similar to the late 60's or early 70's.
Who really needs to be travelling at this point?
Some people do need to travel. I can tell you there are hardly any flights going. A normal February I would have 15 flights. I have 1, and that will probably get cancelled. There’s a lot of freight being carried even on empty flights.
Airports are very lightly staffed, with most on furlough. Basic food and coffee shops open for takeaway (well, they were when I last flew on 19 Dec.
It's clear that the majority of flights into Heathrow are now cargo.
Dubai airport was as busy as normal pre covid levels according to one of my contractors recently, I was surprised at this.
I didn't ask about the UK airport he flew from.
son works at Aberdeen airport, still the mail and cargo flights to deal with. The odd BA from LHR and there is the Shetland island etc flights to deal with.
Puzzles me why anyone needs to be flying.
Let’s hope it’s a long term trend.
My cousin flew to South Africa for ‘business’ a few weeks back. He doesn’t have a unique skill. Quite what was so important that meant he needed to go on an aircraft is beyond me.
Heathrow almost completely dead at 8am this morning. Coffee shops and M&S still open though.
It wasn't dead in check-in this morning in T5. In fact it was about the busiest I've seen it for the past few weeks.
Ah, forgot about cargo.
Small amount of business travel occurring for the company I work for. Some people quarantining in country for two weeks to be able to attend business meetings. Some airports have been doing mandatory testing for some time and some travel corridors are open. Some countries allowing people to get vaccines for business too. Like Singapore airlines vaccinating all their employees as they are critical to Singapore’s economy. Again some of our in region employees are part of Singapore airlines’ vaccination programme as they have service delivery roles. But a changing picture. Obviously some people have families split around the world, some people returning home because visas expired.
Think global flying is around 40% of what it was so a lot of airports are just big car parks for planes. But cargo in demand and flying more than ever.
It wasn’t dead in check-in this morning in T5. In fact it was about the busiest I’ve seen it for the past few weeks.
Can only speak for arrivals which was empty bar a couple of Addison Lee drivers, but even with the airport running a single runway we were the only aircraft on the tower frequency.
Can only speak for arrivals which was empty bar a couple of Addison Lee drivers, but even with the airport running a single runway we were the only aircraft on the tower frequency.
It seems to have been light on arrivals compared to departures for a while now. Earlier in the week they only had 1800 arrivals at T5 during the day which is nuts. Similar in T2 as well, last arriving passengers getting through by 20.30 then it's home time for everyone!
We live very close to Leeds Bradford. Obviously small fry airport but they have had only one flight in and out to Belfast each day for weeks now (I guess on a normal summers day there would be 30-40 departures). Maybe 1-2 other flights some days which I guess are freight or servicing Menwith Hill. It’s to the point, like LD1, it is now something to remark at when you see a plane. Whereas a year ago they were just a general background noise of our daily lives.
it is now something to remark at when you see a plane
Yes - Cardiff's tiny, obviously, but depending on wind we get a few planes a day overhead on approach. Now when we hear one it's a real surprise.
Puzzles me why anyone needs to be flying.
Plenty of things that happen in the world need people to physically be there. The examples below are from people who I know.
Think about the oil industry as an example. Remote land based well somewhere in the world might need a specialist well engineer to resolve a safety or environmental issue. That person can't stay there indefinitely just in case the need for them arises.
Offshore rig off the coast of Mexico or Nigeria. A team of divers might be required to maintain or keep something safe. They can not be expected to safely live in a pressure chamber on a boat nearby from Spring 2020 until who knows when.
People may have inadvertently overstayed visas due to restrictions so need to travel or face detention by whichever state they are in.
Families have been separated across the world, staying put hoping things pass. They haven't. So people may need to travel otherwise their children will be left homeless and unaccompanied.
Freight still needs to travel.
Very few people are traveling in or out of the UK on their holidays at the moment. International travel can be reduced, but not feasible switched off.
^^ Those are all good reasons. However,
Some people quarantining in country for two weeks to be able to attend business meetings.
Attending a meeting isn't.
Tell me about it. A lady at our place decided when we were in a lockdown to fly to the Caribbean for three weeks. When she got there just acted like everything was normal, she was the only one in a very s****y hotel but was taking selfie’s with her friends over there etc...
Why is it the muppets get away with acting like chumps and say a single Mum of 2 goes shopping at the weekend and contracts it!
Needless to say that woman is all about me me me, her insta was all positive messages about S self care while she posed in her bikini...
Immediately unfollowed.
👍
I'd take a picture of the radar screen in front of me but i wont, for 2 reasons.
1. Theres nothing to see.
2. The company get funny about that sort of thing.
The stats on the info board say overall flights are down 62% on the same period last year. Personally it feels a lot quieter than that would suggest. Its almost night shift levels of traffic during the day.
Puzzles me why anyone needs to be flying.
I work overseas so have to travel to get to and from work, was meant to be home over Christmas but my flight was cancelled, not looking at getting back until March now. On thing it has done is remove a lot of the meetings for the sake of meetings and our remote working systems have been upgraded significantly, but sometimes you actually have to be onsite to get things done.
Who really needs to be travelling at this point
We've had several people travel back to the UK to support their family who are suffering with serious illness or even death.
Not all travel is holidays and business.
If you are interested in current traffic density check Flightradar24 or similar, shows information without getting Cobrakai into trouble 😀.
Yesterday evening there were 10 or so flights over UK, mostly cargo passing over.
At 0900 on Sunday there appear to be only one aircraft up over Scotland, a North Sea helicopter.
Up to 80% of cargo space on passenger jets is commercial cargo, that still needs to go. Noticed on a run last week Ryanair have thousands of seating all covered in poly outside their maintenance sheds, must be doing lots more cargo.
One of my team returned to Spain mid December (rules allowed it) to see his family and gf. He lives with one random flat mate here in the UK and his gf’s mother was v poorly in 2020 - he has been pretty isolated. We managed to facilitate him working in Spain for 3 months over the summer and he spent 5 week there are Christmas. Should have been 3 wks but loads of return flights got cancelled. I would have been happy for him to stay as it makes no difference to me if he is on Teams in Leeds or Spain; but work is too worried about having to pick up international tax bills for staff overseas he had to fly back in Jan and has just finished his quarantine (bless him he couldn’t go out in the snow - hoping we get enough this week to be interesting for him). He has said he now won’t fly back again for sometime - due to obviously both the rules but also the stress of the whole thing.
Ironically he’s spent more time with his parents in the last year than I have, and mine live an hour away! However I do live with my partner.
Likewise my brothers bf went back to Canada for a month to see family and flew back in Jan during lockdown for work tax reasons (and one also hopes to come back to live with my brother!).
Southampton is running on short hours during the week and closes for weekends so I guess they are not that busy
My cousin flew to South Africa for ‘business’ a few weeks back. He doesn’t have a unique
Your cousin is Liam Neeson and I claim my 5 Rand.....
I recall that Stansted is now shut overnight (could be 5pm to 5 am) to reduce costs.
There's still some "essential" travel in my sector and speaking to people who've been doing it, the verdict is that it's pretty much all fine except that because it's quiet, most airports have closed loads of the checkin and security sections, so you drift through an abandoned zombie apocalypse airport then get forced to stand packed together for 20 minutes in a queue with no social distancing and people from all different countries and flights. Don't know if it's always like that though.
Lol at @cobrakai STWing when he’s ment to be controlling air traffic 😀
Just to clarify, it was night shift, I was on a break, but had stayed in the room to blether with a colleague. 😄