Appears Waterford will start this summer, announcement due in coming days. They have an AOC (or the company) they are part of do.

Aer Southeast again?

Buster,

Yes - a statement on their FB page reads:

Aer Southeast will begin flights this year!

Aer Southeast is now a part of a company which has its own Airline Operating License, AOC.
It's been a long road, but a lot of work has been done behind the scenes in order to secure the operation.
Due to circumstances out of our control, which included a long period of time when Waterford airport was in deep discussions with another operator, meant that we were not in a position to progress on this matter.
However, those things have been resolved, and Aer Southeast has now picked up were it left off.
More info follows in the coming days.

The ASE team.

Ciao Fly! Those were the days!

Pier B opening date
 

Anyone wanna guess the opening date for Pier B?

Ramp & contractors have been told to relocate from St 46 on the 8th of this month so could it all be opening soon 🤔

Also do we think ramp congestion will be an issue with an 8 stand apron only being served by Delta because of the missing Foxtrot which seems to have been abandoned

If the pier opens it will only part open on the stand side as the coach pick up side has a full length trench running along it where the coaches will stop. Also the top layer of tarmac has yet to be applied. I didn't think the apron side looked much better either with machinery digging up some of the concrete last week.

As for Foxtrot, and this is just a guess. When the extension to Bravo opened the contractor moved into the Midterm car park to finish that project off and to remodel part of it to allow for the construction of the DART. While that is still being finished off they have started on the new drop off zone in the short term car park. I am assuming that in April or May time after these existing projects are completed and when the ground starts to dry out a little they will start on taxiway Foxtrot which has a completion date of 2020.

I was watching the de-icing today which still takes an age. I wasn't sure whether de-icing is done with the engines running but I can confirm it is.

https://i.imgur.com/ZmyDXxK.jpg

If Foxtrot runs north-south to the east of Delta, this taxiway plan has not been dropped.

De-icing will take an age if, as your photo suggests, they were only using the one de-ice rig. Far better to put 3 rigs onto one aircraft.

During the last major frost when many flights got cancelled they operated in pairs but not this time.

They were operating in pairs on Tuesday on the South Apron. Not been at work since, so can't speak for the last couple of days.

As for engines running, on stand obviously not, but on the Airbus there is a restriction of not using APU bleed for 5 mins after the deicing has finished, so need to wait for that time to elapse before we can turn on the bleed, which is needed for engine start. Generally an insignificant extra delay after the de-icing equipment is moved and we've pushed etc.

Remote deicing, APU will be off (as per normal SOP - not required at this point), engines remain running. Flaps up for de-icing, but they are usually set straight after push back, so important to remember to extend them again as soon as deicing is finished. Its a bit out of sequence, so could be easy to forget.

Usually a strategically positioned piece of paper with FLAPS written in big letters is enough to remind you. High tech solutions and all that...

....wouldn't there would be some sort of config warning if you did attempt to depart without some flap?

There is...but what happens if that fails....

Crash: Spanair MD82 at Madrid on Aug 20th 2008, went off runway during takeoff

The first Wizz Air UK airframe operated into Luton today G-WUKA A320.

There certainly would... actually there are two traps to make sure you don't depart with no flaps set - the first is by pushing the 'TO Config Test' button, which does exactly as it says on the tin. The second is physically setting the thrust levers to TOGA or FLEX/MCT.

Edited to add: our Before Takeoff checklist has the line "ECAM memo", to which the response should be "Take off, no blue" If you haven't pressed the TO Config check button at that point, there will be a blue TEST alongside that line on the upper ECAM display. So there's another step to catch the omission error. All in, you would do very well to get onto the runway and set take off power without having set the flaps. But it probably has happened...

At either point, if you are not suitably configured, the Master Warning will go off and scare the bejesus out of you because you won't be expecting it (it happened to me once when we didn't set the flaps, and then pressed the button!) And then you have to do a lot of paperwork.

So, the scrap of paper is a reasonable solution...

Something remarkable has happened this afternoon and into the evening. The airport has remained open despite the snowfall. Must be the right sort of snow.

Closed around 1630 for snow clearing for 40 mins. Several diversions today from Biggin and Farnborough....

Because the temperatures are so low, the snow is drier and easier to clear than our usual wet slush.

Or until the snow clearing equipment breaks down!

Concession up for sale?


https://ijglobal.com/articles/132347...n-airport-sale