LGW - MCO delays

For quite some time now there have been reqular & significant delays on the LGW - MCO route. In fact it seems that if the LGW - MCO flight leaves within 30mins of schedule you can count your self lucky.

Does anybody have any idea what the problem is??[:?]

Originally posted by upsidedown19
For quite some time now there have been reqular & significant delays on the LGW - MCO route. In fact it seems that if the LGW - MCO flight leaves within 30mins of schedule you can count your self lucky.

Does anybody have any idea what the problem is??[:?]

Nope, no idea i,m afraid. Have you tried ringing Virgin?

Knock on effects of the Hurricaines?

Welcome to VF Upsidedown.

This topic has been discussed a fair amount recently under various guises such as Gatwick Delays. A quick search will reveal a couple of the threads I am sure. ALthough I will try to sumarise rather briefly here.

It is worth pointing out that we do not know the reasons for delays. It could be down to any number of things including the lack of gate space at LGW, late arriving passengers on the inbound departure, busy airspace, medical diversion, poor weather in MCO having a knock on effect and so on.

Quite often experiencing the delay is nowhere near as bad as the statistics seem to suggest, especially if there is a genuine reason and the crew handle the situation well.

MCO seems to suffer more than other routes due to the fact that the two MCO flights are the last two departures from LGW every morning. For example a slight delay on the BGI can have a knock on effect on the following flights. Flight Operations also do a lot of moving around of a/c on the day to ensure any tech issues are sorted out.The LGW is also very small and the planes are utilised heavily, if there is a problem it can often take a number of days to work out of the timetable.

Personally I think a delay of under an hour is nothing to worry about, this could quite easily be caused by late arriving passengers, API issues or indeed taxiway congestion at MCO.

I think the problem lies in the flight duration rather than anything specific. If you take the outbound and then inbound flight at 'roughly' 8 hours then add a couple of hours at each side for cleaning, catering refuelling etc then an odd hour here or there for missing passengers etc, it only takes a small technical issue to throw the schedule out.

On top of that add weather delays etc .......

A few tech issues in a row and it can take days if not weeks to catch up again.

David

Has anybody ever actually taken off on any a/c on time ever? I count myself lucky if we actually get on board the plane by the scheduled departure time let alone take off! either I am just increadible unlucky, or have only ever flown with cr@p airlines or possibly a combination of both, but I always head to the airport expecting a minimum of an hour or two delay, so we always treat being at the airport as day 1 of the holiday, G&T the moment we are in the departure lounge, a long leasurly brekkie, a mooch about the shops, a browse through books and magazines, its no big deal. However, I can imagine it would be pretty frustraiting to buisness travellers who have meetings and connecting flights etc.

I think Wiild sums it up very well. Though I have to say I have operated two VS 15s in the last couple of weeks, and we closed up early on both of them. Also at the moment there is no VS 27 until october, so there is a spare a/c which should mean flights are not delayed due to tight turnarounds. LGW is always going to suffer due to all the flights leaving close together, and remember it takes a lot longer to board a full high config LGW 747 than it does an A340-300 yet all our flights from LHR and LGW board at -50 STD regardless of load or a/c type. I think this is a big factor when it comes to delays, as getting 450 pax boarded as opposed to 308 on the 340-600 is always going to be more of a logistical challenge. The groundstaff at LGW do a fantastic job of getting the a/c turned around extremely quickly and then boarded asap and ready to go, but there is always a passenger missing or we are waiting for extra catering, or paperwork, or hold baggage, or fuel to be loaded, or a slot - The list is endless! I know as a passenger it is frustrating when you are delayed, but it's not just Virgin, I used to work for BA and we suffered exactly the same type of problems. I think as long as you keep the passengers informed as to exactly what is going on, then 99% of the time they are happy and accept that it's just one of those things.

Originally posted by Ptarmigan
Has anybody ever actually taken off on any a/c on time ever? I count myself lucky if we actually get on board the plane by the scheduled departure time let alone take off! either I am just increadible unlucky, or have only ever flown with cr@p airlines or possibly a combination of both, but I always head to the airport expecting a minimum of an hour or two delay, so we always treat being at the airport as day 1 of the holiday, G&T the moment we are in the departure lounge, a long leasurly brekkie, a mooch about the shops, a browse through books and magazines, its no big deal. However, I can imagine it would be pretty frustraiting to buisness travellers who have meetings and connecting flights etc.

Or indeed equaly frustrating for those with three kids in tow and a tight budget[:w]

Originally posted by G-VSKY 97

Originally posted by Ptarmigan
Has anybody ever actually taken off on any a/c on time ever? I count myself lucky if we actually get on board the plane by the scheduled departure time let alone take off! either I am just increadible unlucky, or have only ever flown with cr@p airlines or possibly a combination of both, but I always head to the airport expecting a minimum of an hour or two delay, so we always treat being at the airport as day 1 of the holiday, G&T the moment we are in the departure lounge, a long leasurly brekkie, a mooch about the shops, a browse through books and magazines, its no big deal. However, I can imagine it would be pretty frustraiting to buisness travellers who have meetings and connecting flights etc.

Or indeed equaly frustrating for those with three kids in tow and a tight budget[:w]

Indeed. I also view the airport day as part of the holiday. I LOVE flying and all the things that go with it. I'm incredibly excited from the moment I get in the car to go to the airport [:I] And to end up in the LHR CH is the cherry on the cake!

The significant majority of the time I've taken off on time on flights I've taken. Even with easyJet and Ryanair. In fact the only time I've had a significant delay was with VS [:?] but then you get looked after properly. I shudder to think what it would be like to have a 12 hour delay on Ryanair. Ooopps - I may have tempted fate - I'm flying with them to Berlin this weekend!

[mitchja]

I read somewhere that the VS15 went tech a few days ago with a flaps problem so had to dump fuel and then come back.

Regards

Or indeed equaly frustrating for those with three kids in tow and a tight budget[:w]

Well, we always have our own 2 kids in tow, and occasionally I have done it with my own kids and my 2 nephews. I head down to Wilko's a couple of weeks before the flight and stock up on travel board games, cards, sticker books etc £20 well spent IMO, it keeps the kiddos quiet and occupied for ages. I always factor in airport expenses into our budget too, I have travelled on a shoestring numerous times, but I enjoy my time at the airport and save that extra little bit each time we go away so I can relax and have a good time, despite the delays that usually happen!
I think for families in the tight budget/kids situation the new V-Room at gatwick will be Godsend [y]
Anything over 2 hours would start to irritate me, as its then cutting into precious holiday time, but other than that I usually just go with the flow and try not too get stressed about it, afterall sitting there quietly furious isnt going to achieve anything is it? other than to ruin the start of my hols!

Oh Ptarmigan, I wish all our pax had your attitude, work would be so much sweeter!

I flew from Gran Canaria a few years ago with First Choice and we took off an hour early - fabulous!

This thread is of interest to me as I'm flying out to MCO from MAN in a few weeks time - with some friends travelling on the same day from LGW. I too have been keeping an eye on the LGW delays (the MAN flight is normally reasonably punctual) and there have been some quite bad delays on the LGW flights lately.

I think that Virginboy747 and Willd sum up many of the causes of the delays quite well. Gatwick is congested, particularly at high season. 50mins is not long enough to board 450 people, especially given the relatively high number of special needs pax you often get on a MCO flight. All it takes is for an aircraft to have a slight problem - or a passenger to get waylaid in the departure lounge bar and you have a toolbox in the works. I think VS rely a bit too much on the shorter than scheduled return flights back to the UK to hopefully make up any lost time on the outbound.

Fingers crossed for an on-time LGW & MAN flight in six and a bit weeks.

James

I can understand and sympathise with delays when an aircraft goes tech or if there has been a problem with baggage handlers. What really pees me off - and you don't pick it up unless you are in departures - are the 'last and final call for Mr and Mrs Bloggs, your aircraft is waiting to depart' messages. Followed 10 minutes later with the 'last and final call for Mr and Mrs Bloggs, your aircraft is waiting to depart.' And then the same call in another 10 mins. Sorry but if pax cannot make it to the gate in time, LEAVE THEM [:w]

Treelo - I fully agree with your line of thought in theory. It would be a great incentive to people if they knew they were going to get off-loaded if late at the gate. (A few years back, American Airlines started closing aircraft doors 10mins before departure, which got the goat of some of their pax who thought it was OK to turn up 1min prior to departure and board).

In practice, once you start off-loading, you can guarantee that the offending pax bags are not going to be on the first container you unload. More likely they'll be on one of the last that you unload & at the bottom of the container, as they checked in early and took a bit too much advantage of a bar / restaurant in departures, hence causing their late arrival at the gate.

I am sure some of the VS staff members on here will be able to advise on the length of delay that occurs when bags have to be off-loaded. I would not want to be the flight dispatcher who has to decide whether to off-load people, as the offending late pax will invariably turn up 30secs after their bags have just been off-loaded, with aircraft still at gate. Cue angry scenes 'as the plane is still on the ground'.

You're absolutely right Kraken, it's not just the mission of locating the bags, but all the paperwork has to be changed including the final load-sheet. This all takes quite a long time as the loadsheet is completed in the office and then has to be faxed through to the cockpit. That's why it is often quicker to keep making calls in the terminal to try and get the pax to the a/c.

Ahh my favourite topic.

All of the words of defence would apply for every flight for every airline, and so it doesn't make complete sense as to why it is always MCO that feels the pain.

I think, and have said before that I think there is a pecking order of passenger importance to Virgin. Something like:

NYC
LAX
ALL other LHR Departures
LAS
Most other LGW departures
MCO

Whatever the order MCO seems to come down at the bottom.

VS late departures is one of the major factors in me swapping almost all of my flights to BA now which in turn has meant that I dropped from Gold to Silver (and to Red next year) which in turn has the effect of making me book less! All a vicious cycle that just drives me away from VS, but they probably don't care as a MCO passenger I come at the bottom of their list of importance and so on and so on.

Paul

Believe me p17blo every pax is important to us in these difficult times. But I understand your frustrations and they are well-founded that cant be denied. In the old days the MCOs departed at 12:30 and 14:00 from LGW and there were other flights to BOS and YYZ and EWR all around the same time, so it wasn't always MCO getting delayed and we usually had a spare 747-200 sitting around in case of any problems. Now we dont have spare a/c and the MCOs are the last two flights to go so they do suffer any knock-on delays. I guess it has to do with the slot times that are available into and out of the arrival destinations as to which flights go at wich times, but I can assure you it's not because virgin value some passengers over others.

[Darren Wheeler]

Expertflyer shows the punctuality of vs15 as 50% - average delay of 66m, based over 2 months. All it wants is a couple of techy planes or bad weather to hit the figures.

I flew to MCO on VS027 on May 1st this year and the VS015 after me was cancelled....thats probably why our requested seats were not given and we were shunted to the back of the plane!! Not taking any chances this time and going for PE....requested upstairs , but lets see!! Out of 6 MCO flights out of LGW...I can only remember 1 going out on time....the worst delay fo us was 3 hours.....coming home is always a nightmare too.

Hi everyone,
My mum was on the VS16 back from MCO last night, twas some 3 hours plus late! Nice for me because I did not have to get up at the crack of dawn to go get her. BUT we are flying next Wed out on the VS15 which is of course delayed today some 3 hours plus. My question is how do they get that time back and turn it around back to the scheduled times? Just by smidging a bot off day by day. I never mind up to an hour delay but over2 makes me itchy LOL.

Originally posted by Nemmie
Hi everyone,
My mum was on the VS16 back from MCO last night, twas some 3 hours plus late! Nice for me because I did not have to get up at the crack of dawn to go get her. BUT we are flying next Wed out on the VS15 which is of course delayed today some 3 hours plus. My question is how do they get that time back and turn it around back to the scheduled times? Just by smidging a bot off day by day. I never mind up to an hour delay but over2 makes me itchy LOL.

What a question.

There are a number of factors that play into getting the aircraft back on schedule.

IIRC, certain days ex LGW there is an aircraft left on the ground so they can bring this into play. They can attempt to have quicker turn arounds in out stations which will help. Take MCO for example, unless the airport is closed due to a storm, they can normally turn around there very quickly, partly because there are no taxi/slot delays, and VS always operate to and from the same gates.

Getting the passengers to the gate on time also helps, ever wondered why it always says flight closing in the departure lounge?!?

Its important to remember that just because the plane operates in from MCO doesnt mean it flies straight back out there, it could be off to HAV or BGI for example.

Originally posted by Nemmie
Hi everyone,
My mum was on the VS16 back from MCO last night, twas some 3 hours plus late!

Virgin must of had some problems at LGW yesterday, as vs43 was late leaving also.

The main competition on the route is leaving on time day in day out whilst the VA scheduled departure time is to all intents meaningless. Passengers have options and for some time now the BA option has been a little more expensive but in terms of the quality of product (in economy at least) far superior. VA need to get this sorted because once the wider public become aware of this situation I am sure that they will drift towards BA. I have to say that in my case travelling with children I would have to pick BA now because I could not tolerate such a high chance of turning up in MCO having suffered a 3 hour delay.