And, unfortunately, absolutely none of the "explanations" given here for those cancellations would mollify any of the disappointed passengers.

Landed LHR safely this morning. Long-hauls are doing fine, ditto for most European flights. Just usual circle-around-London-seven-times-landing pattern.

Disruption seems to affect just domestic flights and paris/brussel flights where you have alternative modes of transportation. In-flight announcement that BA providing coach transfer to some domestic destinations for connecting passengers.

Fog not bad this morning. Captain explanation was that BAA was regulating the frequency/number of take-off/landing, so they're doing triage to prioritise flights.
Looks like bmi flights were affected as well.

Basically, they just cancelled all of the short haul flights. Vive l'Eurostar.

Are Audere's posts witty or in bad taste?

Hard to tell unless you know the person. Could be a neo-con who thinks the only help people need is a dose of free market economics; or could be a giver and lover of words who knows folk will recognise the style.

Which is it?

<<< BA has managed to keep most long-haul flights going, with 330,000 people getting away from Heathrow. >>>

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...515411,00.html

<<< Why has fog grounded flights?

Planes fly through cloud every day, and fog is no different. Heathrow normally has a three-mile space between each landing aircraft. In bad weather, this is extended to six miles, which means the landing capacity of each runway drops from 45 an hour to fewer than 30. Heathrow has world-class technology, but pilots and air traffic control need to see, too. If they cannot, the technology enables landing and take-off, but less frequently, so fewer planes can move through the airport.

Is BA the only airline cancelling flights?

No, all domestic and short-haul airlines at Heathrow are affected, including bmi, Air France, KLM and Lufthansa.

Why are only domestic and European flights cancelled?

BA believes that it is easier for passengers on domestic and short-haul flights to find alternative transport. >>>

There is some outrage here in Scotland that BA took the decision to cancel *all* domestic flights (for 3 days now) & give priority to international travellers.

Another good reason for me to prefer bmi, who have spread the cancellations across their routes.

Setting aside any argument about alrternative surface travel options (and the trains will be fully booked or if not, exorbitant by now), BA is ignoring the fact that to get from somewhere like Edinburgh to almost anywhere abroad, we have to travel via London.

P.S. We've had no fog at all here, and in fact Wednesday & Thursday were beautifully sunny.

<<< BA is ignoring the fact that to get from somewhere like Edinburgh to almost anywhere abroad, we have to travel via London. >>>

If you look at the people at Heathrow, many of them were people who would have been flying domestically TO Heathrow for an onward flight and have missed their connection because of the cancellation.

The whole string is blurring in front of me

Every fashion consious person is eating goose for xmas. Goose stocks at all time zero

BAA have new owners who make concrete. BAA now wants to pour more concrete and thinks the Londoners in the way stopping them winning a massive bonus
BAA Gatwick and Heathrow suffered a couple of days operating at 60% capacity because of a little fog.

As a result BA cancelled internal flights as alternatives exist (also of course BA is selling all its internal flights and becoming a international airline and so don't care)

Xmas just had to be on the 25th December (if only Mary had kept her legs crossed a little longer the flights would not have had such a knock on effect.)

What interests me is as global warming kicks in more and the weather gets worse how will that effect all the airlines/airports?

The son of a friend of ours says his Heathrow-Philadelphia flight is supposed to depart on time, and that most of the transatlantic flights are OK.

I just checked my usual overnight flight from Miami to London on American. PalenqueBob is right. Chaos at Heathrow. Instead of arriving at the usual 9:50 this morning -- the flight didn't arrive until 9:53. The HORRORS!!!

Even under the best of circumstances, I hate Heathrow. (It's so muggy in there I call it Heatrow.) I'd rather walk through the fog with all my luggage to the nearest boat than spend a night there.