RECENT NEW ACTIVITY @ LHR
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Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Notts & Derbyshire border
Posts: 464
Originally Posted by trident3A
RwandAir A330 Heathrow-Kigali today - new one on me
today, a Spanish A330 pax flying LAX-LHR arriving this morning EC-MII - must be a repatriation flight also was a Miami Air B737-8 that flex MIA-YQX-EMA yesterday evening- very interesting could be a pax or mx flight to EMA? Very interesting as this one was new to Varig originally.
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: There and here
Posts: 2,075
I was on another flight at the next gate to the Rwandair A330 a couple of months back, got all excited until it was pointed out that it was an LGW regular. As mentioned, due to LGW on very reduced ops, LHR is the choice.
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: There and here
Posts: 2,075
Talking of flight numbers, whilst looking at various flights at various times these last weeks, I've noticed that there seems to be a reasonable proportion of them flying between point 'A' and 'B', but the flight tracker lists them as from/to other airports completely different to the route shown. These aren't 4-digit special flights btw.
Is it that flight numbers have been re-allocated and the system still has them in the previous iteration ?
Is it that flight numbers have been re-allocated and the system still has them in the previous iteration ?
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Reading, UK
Posts: 12,482
Originally Posted by SpringHeeledJack
Talking of flight numbers, whilst looking at various flights at various times these last weeks, I've noticed that there seems to be a reasonable proportion of them flying between point 'A' and 'B', but the flight tracker lists them as from/to other airports completely different to the route shown. These aren't 4-digit special flights btw.
Is it that flight numbers have been re-allocated and the system still has them in the previous iteration ?
Is it that flight numbers have been re-allocated and the system still has them in the previous iteration ?
The flight trackers always struggle in April and November of every year, when the airlines switch between Summer and Winter schedules.
The reason is that, while the trackers pick up the ATC callsign for a flight, the route is derived by converting the callsign into the IATA flight number. That works fine for airlines that use wholly numeric callsigns (for example US carriers), but most major European carriers use alphanumeric callsigns which typically change every season for a given flight number. To make matters worse, the new alphanumeric callsign for a particular flight number may have been used in the past for a completely different flight, so the conversion that the flight trackers are using may be out-of-date.
For example, Lufthansa has used DLH1LA in the past for LH3383 (Heathrow-Dusseldorf) and then subsequently for LH2477 (Heathrow-Munich).
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Reading, UK
Posts: 12,482
Originally Posted by trident3A
Back on 09L departures today, it does seem a little busier too
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: There and here
Posts: 2,075
I have noticed over the last weeks that the DHL aircraft seem to be at 3 times the altitude of similar departing passenger flights at the same relatively close to LHR point. Is this because they are much lighter, as in 'inbound full, outbound empty' ?
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Reading, UK
Posts: 12,482
Originally Posted by treadigraph
See there was a China Southern A380 B-6319 at Heathrow tonight - didn't realise they had them, was this a first visit?
Last edited by DaveReidUK; 24th Apr 2020 at 09:02. Reason: typo
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: UK
Age: 64
Posts: 235
Last week's flight arrived with only a handful of passengers and huge amounts of PPE which was not only in the hold, but on the seats and overhead bins. The boxes on the seats are held down with netting to stop it moving in case of turbulence. Some other flights are also doing this including a BA 777 from Singapore on Wednesday of this week.
