Airport Delays

Just shows how much technology impacts on our everyday life.

A computer problem in Hampshire, and the result is a complete closure of air space over London, leading to frustrating delays for travellers, planes grounded, flights cancelled and knock on delays not only at London’s airports but others round the country as well.

Yet, thankfully earlier it was business very much as normal as my Blipfoto today shows. The usual hustle and bustle was much in evidence as passengers were dropped off at Terminal 5 and no doubt at Heathrow’s other terminals as well.

In fact early morning, the area around the terminal seemed particularly busy, with queues towards the terminal’s business car park, and police moving cars on even quicker than usual it seemed once passengers had been dropped off at the terminal.

But it is just that volume of activity which leads to chaos when anything upsets the normal routine. Yet this problem happened 70 miles away, affecting the control of aircraft in the skies over southern England.

Thankfully, over many years of travelling I fell victim to serious delays relatively few times. Once on a flight from Amsterdam to Seoul in South Korea when the ‘plane was diverted in the middle of the night to Moscow because of a medical emergency on board; another time in Gibraltar because of storms which prevented the incoming aircraft from landing; then in Copenhagen when a evening flight to Heathrow was cancelled; and most recently on a flight from Southampton to Milan when a problem over other passengers’ baggage at Southampton meant we missed our connection in Paris. And there are only so many times you can walk around airport shops, even at Orly Airport when you are unexpectedly faced with a ten hour wait for the next flight!

Oh yes, nearly forgot the time I was forced to spend an extra day at a plush Hilton Hotel in Rome, because of a quite different air traffic control problem.

Suffering the inconvenience of an extra day in the Italian capital? Well perhaps it wasn’t all that inconvenient or bad.