Perth Airport Tuesday 6th Dec

[Jon B]

Major delays yesterday in Perth as a large storm sat over the city for most of the day till about 5pm. I was pretty happy as my Virgin flight to Mel was only delayed about 2 hours from 17:05, but i could see planes parked everywhere as they had been landing but could not unload or refuel with the storm just hanging around. I counted waiting for gates at 7pm on one taxiway 6 Qantas - 4 x 767 (i think we passed them on takeoff) and 2 x 737 aircraft and 1 Jetstar. Also there were other aircraft parked up around the various taxiways waiting on gates - about another 6 or so - seemed to be mainly Qantas. Lots of passengers sitting on planes on the ground on arrival for 4 - 6 hours so imagine the knock on delays would have been big. The Virgin flight to Sydney left just before ours but also went to Melbourne arrived about 1am and they were organising hotels in Mel. Adelaide flight was leaving at 1am Perth time delayed from 3 pm ish.

Full credit to all the Virgin staff who did a great job on a what was no doubt a difficult day for them - most passengers were understanding as you cant control the weather. Although i did hear one passenger in the Virgin lounge who was certain that Virgin had a spare aircraft ready to go!

All those aircraft sitting on the ground like that was probably a rare site in Perth (and one they would not wish to repeat i am sure).

[chrisb]

A friend is still trying to get to LHR - They've been told that a A380 is being held in SIN for them - Resulting in QF31 being delayed from 23:59 tonight until 6.20am tomorrow. If they're not rebooking the pax that's a horrible delay for passengers from SYD.

[Bob C]

Geoff Thomas reported in today’s “West Australian” that severe lightning strikes bought Qantas operations to a halt, stranding up to 18 planes on taxiways and remote parking bays with nearly 2000 passengers on board and one plane was held for nearly SEVEN HOURS. And an estimated 5000 passengers were stranded in the terminal awaiting outbound flights.

An inbound South African A340 was hit by lightning and was met by three fire engines when it landed but received only very minor damage.

Apparently the chaos was caused by safety provisions in the Qantas baggage handlers’ and engineers’ awards that prevent staff from working on the tarmac when there is lightning within 5kms of the airport. Altogether, 57 QF flights were affected and many cancelled. There was one exception when a flight arrived at 4pm with a critically ill patient on board so it was sent to the International Terminal where there was a free bay and the passenger was disembarked.

Throughout all this chaos, tempers became frayed and least one passenger who had been held on a plane for hours was taken into police custody when his frustrations overcame him and he became abusive to staff.

Who would want to be a Qantas Terminal Manager? Let's add it to the list of the World’s Worst Jobs.

Needless to say, all those Qantas passengers were utterly frustrated when other airlines operated throughout most of the day because their ground handling staff operate under different awards. However, some of these flights did experience lengthy delays and there were some cancellations when lightning and storms struck the airport – Geoff reported 6 lightning strikes at the airport during the day.

Many of the stranded passengers were unsympathethic and scathing in their criticism of Qantas ground staff believing them to be overly cautious and some questioned what chance does Qantas has when its workforce has such provisions entrenched in the awards ?

Things started to return to normal late last night and although we’ve had a bit more rain today, nothing like yesterday when we only fell a few mm short of breaking the daily December rainfall record.

Cheers

Bob

[Todd Hendry]

Bob,
If I worked for any airline other than QF I would ask to have the provision in my award( if thats where it is). I actually think it might be a QF requirement regardless of your job. I have seen the aftermath of a lightning strike on an aircraft at a gate in Brisbane. The engineer who was on the headset attached to the aircraft, lost his short term memory, therefore lost his licence.
Todd

[Greg McDonald]

Virgin have the same provision in their award although I'm not sure of the storm distance from the airport before it's enforced. It's safety and common sense.

[Nigel C]

Sydney has a 10 nautical mile and 5 nautical mile lightning alert system installed around the airport for thunderstorm events. The entire ramp is typically deserted when the 5 mile alert gets displayed/sounded.

In June 2007, 3 contractors were hit by lightning as they were vacating their worksite after a 5 mile alert was issued for a fast moving storm. Thankfully all 3 suffered no long term injuries.

[Todd Hendry]

Dangerous stuff.

[Nigel C]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur2arqwWkPs

Have a close look at this. Just after the nose wheel chocks are put in place, you can see a chunk of metal getting blown off the ground next to the nose wheel, and it nearly hits another worker on the tug 10 or so metres away. Also check out the 'feeder' lightning on the slow-motion bit that's started somewhere forward of the No 2 engine.
All that from a strike that hit the tail!

Here's the full arrival video of that aircraft and the strike. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy8yA_sr1kM&

[Grahame Hutchison]

Quite a flash to the left of the nose wheel.

[Brenden S]

I know a engineer that was struck by lightning while working on a aircraft. He is ok, but can't walk straight now.