Perth to London

[WHBM]

Heathrow arrivals

Originally Posted by Icarus2001

This mornings arrivals (today SUNDAY 29 April)...

That list [early morning arrivals at London Heathrow) has much duplication/triplication of flights due to code shares.

Simplistically, Heathrow has about 13 arrivals each morning between 0430 and 0600 Local. It's "about" because the limit is for overall night flights, per season, but that's how it works out each day. BA have about 50%. Qantas have had one for years, they are all grandfather rights. Anything else has to hold untl 0600, but QF has one of the slots. But for pre-0600 allowed arrivals, holding would not happen unless there is some issue developed on the ground. Of Heathrow's two runways, only one is used pre-0600 on a rota basis (both are used from 0600 to 0700 for arrivals), but if there is a hangup on one things are immediately switched to the other.

Where an issue might arise would be unfavourable winds or routing, plus maybe a late departure from Perth, leading to them not arriving in the Terminal Area until just after 0600, when all the holds are quite often full and there is secondary holding further out as well. Of course, you then still always have to allow for an incident to a prior aircraft which ties up the ARFF services and closes the airport.