VS046 Struck by vehicle on tarmac

A colleague of mine was on VS046 today, but was delayed as a vehicle struck the aircraft while it was still on stand. Everyone was de-planed and assigned seats on other flights. I don't have any more details I'm afraid.

Still out here in NY, expecting to operate the VS046 A346 back home tonight. Some of the crew pax home last night on the VS004 and the rest of us will work through the night!!! Did the incident happen in JFK or Heathrow? I reiceved a fax from Crewing at 5am NY time(10am UK) but my other half saw the crew at checkin at Heathrow on time?? Slightly confused.
Great website by the way.

Cheers
Jetset

My mistake. VS045 was struck at LHR on Tuesday morning.

Oki-dokie, that makes more sense.
I take it they found the vehicle's engine still running but an empty space were the driver should be!!

Just out of interest,Do you know which A/C it was?

Jetset

Sorry, no. My colleague isn't that much of a VS nut.

Hello

It was G-VTOP which got hit by some ground equipment just prior to departure time. It punctured the skin and the a/c has now positioned (low level unpressurised) to Dublin for a fix. Due to having no spare a/c pax were reaccomodated on other VS flights.

Cheers
Alan

quote:Originally posted by airchabum
It punctured the skin and the a/c has now positioned (low level unpressurised) to Dublin for a fix. Due to having no spare a/c pax were reaccomodated on other VS flights.

Cheers
Alan

Alan,

Just out of interest - How long does a repair like take and I assume operations needs to do backflips in order to make up the loss as (in theory) they are a plane short.

Phil (Buffy)

I'm guessing most airlines insure themselves against this kind of revenue loss[?]

Hi Phil

VTOP is going to be out of service for 3 or 4 days but the 346 that had the tailscrape a while back was out for weeks. It depends how much work they have to do really.

We resolved the VS45 problem only because there was spare capacity on the other NY services. It's a different story when they'll all full though [:(] To cover flights on the following days VWOW (which is currently LGW based) was positioned to LHR and some LGW flights were combined.

It's all very expensive but I don't know who picks up the tab.

Cheers
Alan

[Decker]

Alan

This is fascinating - it'd make a good essay [8D]

My colleague flew American, not VS on Tuesday in the end. Not all the pax were flown on later VS flights! He was J, so might have got put on the earliest available flight.

quote:Originally posted by airchabum
Hi Phil

VTOP is going to be out of service for 3 or 4 days but the 346 that had the tailscrape a while back was out for weeks. It depends how much work they have to do really.

We resolved the VS45 problem only because there was spare capacity on the other NY services. It's a different story when they'll all full though [:(] To cover flights on the following days VWOW (which is currently LGW based) was positioned to LHR and some LGW flights were combined.

It's all very expensive but I don't know who picks up the tab.

Cheers
Alan

Thanks Alan,

As you can probably guess the logistics of a/c positioning and scheduling are my pet interest. The mind boggles as to how they work out the interrelation of all the aircraft movements and flights under normal circumstances - v. good software? But in situations like this - well where do they start.

With Thanksgiving coming up next week most of the flights out of the US are packed - Looks like VTOP will be back by then.

Thought they might have postponed VLIPs UCS refit.

Phil (Buffy)

quote:Originally posted by csparker
My colleague flew American, not VS on Tuesday in the end. Not all the pax were flown on later VS flights! He was J, so might have got put on the earliest available flight.

Good to see the J pax got earlier flights...there's a long gap between the VS45 and the later NY services.

Cheers
Alan