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Post by pgreeny007 on Nov 29, 2021 20:22:17 GMT 1
Was a disaster last night. Me and the mrs stuck at Belfast for 6 hours waiting for U2614 and as said above, the airport was freezing when we walked through finally at about 0100 hours
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Post by lfc84 on Nov 29, 2021 21:05:06 GMT 1
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Post by northbynorthwest on Nov 29, 2021 21:37:37 GMT 1
Murder this morning from last nights fiasco 3 flights being rescheduled AMS BFS IOM cause the deicing trucks were not working apparently, we were told LPL only has a few and they were all broken, passengers understandably annoyed and i dont know lately what is wrong with the terminal building but it is absolutely freezing first thing in the morning which is not very nice when sitting on the bag drop bags all morning. passengers were all complaining saying what is wrong with the heating is it off. security is always nice and warm though Yikes, there really is no excuse for this situation to happen. My views on this are based on 30+ years working at Northwest and Delta Air Lines in Flight Dispatch and Operations Control. We had to operate in extreme winter weather, and every year we had a plan in place to prepare for the upcoming winter ops. We could start planning in August / September. We would have people from my office going around each airport that could possibly be affected by snow / ice around our system - this was an annual event. They would hold the airport management and airline station managers accountable for ensuring that everything was ready, everyone is trained, everything is in place and works by the end of October each year. In my view, this all falls on management of both the airport and the airlines. I presume Easyjet and Ryanair have station managers at LPL and/or management at headquarters who are in change of winter ops throughout their systems. They and/or the management of the handling agents should have been discussing winter ops with the LPL airport management well before now. What kind of deicing fluids do they have at hand, or on order? What kind of training program is in place? Are the deicing trucks maintained and operational? How about snowplows and other snow removal equipment? Who are the decision makers and how do they communicate with the airlines? These are just some of the questions that should be answered and acted upon well before now. The airport management should have been preparing months ago too - there is no excuse for the deicing trucks to be inop. Deicing is not just for snow events, deicing can be needed at temperatures well above freezing. Rant over.....
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Post by Samba on Nov 30, 2021 7:39:16 GMT 1
Well said, I Hope people involved take note. Bob.
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Post by frlpl91 on Nov 30, 2021 14:36:56 GMT 1
I told a lot of the passengers to make a formal complaint about Easyjet not providing you any accommodation, we were told in training anything over 12 hrs they must provide accommodation, and also complain about the airport deice trucks not working, simply isn’t good enough we have had days of warning about the strong winds cold weather.
yesterday morning a few planes are delayed slightly cause they only had 1 de ice truck going from plane to plane apparently.
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Post by andyh on Nov 30, 2021 14:48:43 GMT 1
I always understood that the de-icing equipment was owned, maintained and operated by the handling agents not the airport?
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Post by vanguard on Nov 30, 2021 16:21:39 GMT 1
I always understood that the de-icing equipment was owned, maintained and operated by the handling agents not the airport? In my days at LJLA the de-iceing rigs belonged to the aircraft handling company,the only other de-iceing rigs on the airport belong to the airport company for runway and ramp/apron de-iceing.
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Post by ronturner on Nov 30, 2021 17:34:36 GMT 1
Whatever the reason for the lack of de-icing kit, its very bad, and the reputation of the airport will suffer. I sincerely hope that if and when these G7 ministers fly into the airport, the situation is better managed. Not that I put Knobs above Jo public, in terms of priority but the (bad) publicity arising from a similar event will be exponential. I can see it now. Travel managers for those guys reading about this, and looking to see if there is a grown up airport nearby.
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Post by northbynorthwest on Nov 30, 2021 17:47:12 GMT 1
I always understood that the de-icing equipment was owned, maintained and operated by the handling agents not the airport? In my days at LJLA the de-iceing rigs belonged to the aircraft handling company,the only other de-iceing rigs on the airport belong to the airport company for runway and ramp/apron de-iceing. That is a good point, I had forgotten about how everything seems to be contracted out to Handling Agents in order to drive down costs. So the Handling Agents - and in particular, their management at LPL need to be added to the mix for planning and having equipment working and ready to go. Of course they need to be held accountable too. However, that doesn't negate any culpability by the airlines and the airport management. They are all supposed to work together and plan for such issues as this. If they were talking together, this situation absolutely should not have occurred. Whether the airlines like it or not, preparing for winter ops (and the costs involved) are part of the cost of doing business and for maintaining operational integrity. I hope that all the parties involved learn from this debacle and don't just finger point.
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Post by jake3 on Nov 30, 2021 19:05:04 GMT 1
Surprise surprise cold weather and chaos occurs. Its been the same for 20 years or more, I can't remember what the de icing truck was when I was there ( dodge or ford) but it was nearly always inoperative. First bit of cold weather there was a mad scramble to get it working. In contrast when I was at Hawarden it was over kill with the winter vehicles. Tractors were hired for the winter and stored indoors the snow ploughs were always maintain to a high order and deicing equipment was always ready to go. Why...planning, nothing was going to stop the Beluga it was and is Hawarden life blood, so equally passenger flights from lpl are its. There are times I wonder if their are people at lpl who rather see it fail than succeed.
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Post by silvercity on Nov 30, 2021 19:37:50 GMT 1
Just changing the subject. Easyjet CDG route is not being operated. They don't have much precedent of returning to routes dropped. Maybe one for the Flybe ?!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2021 10:56:39 GMT 1
When I worked at Manchester, the de-icing rigs were owned and maintained by a totally separate company, who used to do the washing of the aircraft at other times of the year. (There is what is known as a washbay on one of the remote stands - can't remember the number now). It was the responsibility of the handling agent, with one eye on the weather, to book the de-icing trucks for a visit to the aircraft prior to departure.
I imagine LPL is not busy enough to support a stand-alone company, but as others have said, it's unacceptable. It's all down to costs of course, like everything in life nowadays, but whilst the beancounters may rub their hands at having saved a bit of cash on maintenance, the potential for more traffic, which would bring in more revenue, is being undermined.
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Post by railwayboy on Dec 3, 2021 11:51:28 GMT 1
Flights now available for LPL-TFS for S22 after only being a winter session route previously, 2x weekly.
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Post by frlpl91 on Dec 4, 2021 8:57:57 GMT 1
had a few passengers yesterday saying there turkey flights have been cancelled for may next year. hope they are not dropping turkey altogether.
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Post by LPL on Dec 4, 2021 10:31:51 GMT 1
All three routes are bring sold on the Easyjet website.
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