Airline staff question (posting here for traffic)

[user9512736123]

I'm tracking DD's flight home, it's due to land in 1/2 an hour. Why would it suddenly do a u turn away from the airport?!

Busy circling til they can get space to land?

Probably a queue to land or can't land due to weather. As the weather is ok, probably the former. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about.

Circling, or diverting due weather or contaminated runway. Which airport? Carrier?

It's done a u turn, then a small loop and then has gone off in the opposite direction to the airport.

They will quite often 'stack' if it's busy. They'll just fly round in a circle away from the airport until it's clear for their landing slot then they'll make their approach once air traffic give the all clear, they have sET areason fpr dping this so its all completely controlled. Air traffic may well be spacing landings out a little more or day as it's windy but nothing to worry about.

It looks like it's turning back in now, I guess I won't be having to dash to another airport instead

BA into Heathrow.

Its doing big circles until it gets a landing slot. Heathrow is so busy, if you're a minute late you're stuck circling for ages.

Reassuringly it's now disappeared off the map with 15 minutes to go! It's probably going to go over the car any minute and land :-)

The skies over heathrow are massively busy the planes are stacked out all over the South. I have driven from South London to M4 corridor and seen them stacked.

I've circled over the south coast before now, years ago when I was a child we circled over central London - that wouldn't be allowed now - but it was amazing (and a little scary just how low we were).

The plane has landed now apparently. Time to watch for a phone call to go and fetch her. thanks MNers.

Planes still circle around central London - love the views we get of the eye etc

We were just about to land in Manchester last week and were diverted to Liverpool where we sat on the runway for an hour before flying back to Manchester.
They said there was a technical issue with a plane on the runway.

I circled over Central London on Thursday.

I thought you wouldn't be allowed any more, not sure why but i thought I'd read it somewhere . Maybe it was a temporary thing a few years ago.

We circled over the centre - St Pauls, House of Parliament etc. I remember other passengers saying you'd pay a fortune for that kind of sightseeing tour.

Holding pattern it will do circles while it waits to land, or to burn fuel if it's too heavy to land

After September 11 a lot of big cities banned planes from their airspace. It only lasted a few months.
Though if there's a big event happening/chatter in the spy world they still do it occasionally (but on an individual city basis) so its less obvious.
My last flight in to Heathrow the pilot pointed out Wimbledon over the intercom :)

We flew over Paris recently, the pilot pointed out the Eiffel Tower; not that it was hard to spot or anything

Once we flew up the eastern seaboard and went over New York before turning east, that was amazing.