Heathrow Weather
Possibly a daft question but:
This morning, Heathrow is suffering from reduced visibility, causing lots of problems for arriving traffic. Virgin & Delta were getting desperate and planning to divert to Birmingham and Stansted respectively.
The inbound Etihad & Qatar flights have gone off to Manchester and the inbound Emirates flight is doing trips around the bay over the North Sea and various other flights are wearing holes in the atmosphere over Ockham.
In this sort of situation, why does the airport not hold departing traffic for 10 or 20 minutes at a time to allow the holding traffic a chance to land?