Surprised by all the planes in flight right now...

[Unfortunate]

Went through a phase a while ago with DS where he was really into checking the live flight tracker app - was always mind boggling to see how many planes were in flight across the world.

Anyway, today we checked for the first time in ages and I was expecting to see a drastic reduction in the amount of flights in transit due to coronavirus. However, it looks like there’s loads - obviously a lot are cargo which makes sense but also loads of commercial flights?!

We are obviously in lockdown as are a lot of other places in Europe - so why are so many planes coming and going?!

Hi
I’m ex crew. The flights you see are not passengers as such, they are carrying medical staff, nurses, doctors, scientists etc, to and from. Also, medical supplies and cargo in the hold.

Probably mostly Freightdogs. Would you and your DS enjoy watching Big Jet TV on Youtube?

@Unfortunate they aren’t passenger planes, or most wont be. Lots of air traffic controllers have been stood down as the reduction in our air space is so significant. Other than the Russians who keep trying to sneak in!

longdistance - wow thanks, that’s interesting and again, mind boggling! DS will be impressed.

solebizzz - Big Jet TV... off to investigate, the words ‘big jet’ ‘tv’ and ‘ youtube’ are all very highly regarded by DS

I’m crew. A lot of them ARE passenger planes. We’re still flying a lot of routes. We wish we weren’t!

honey - god really?! So technically we are on lockdown but we could actually leave the country? Is it mostly people who are trying to repatriate to their home countries - tourists/students etc?

Please please please whatever you do DO NOT tune in to BigJet live feed tomorrow. They are creating a shit storm with their intention to shoot live from Heathrow. Non essential and all that. The guy is a prick.

You can only leave the country if you’re returning to your country of residence, I think.

The difference in flights now compared with 3 weeks ago is huge though. It may look like a lot, but it's definitely much less. Also aircraft that are normal passenger planes are not taking passengers but still taking the belly cargo. Things are still moving. Planes are going out and moving people home to and from countries all over the world

I live on the Heathrow flight path. There are hardly any flights going overhead. It's noticeably quiet, especially first thing in the morning.

Heathrow cancellations today...

195 Arrivals

150 Departures

A Tui flight took off from Gatwick to Cancun just earlier when I was watching flightradar

I’m not too far from an airport and I hardly see anything going over now

I saw a private jet today and that’s the only one so far

My next door neighbour is a pilot and he’s been home for weeks now

We took a drive before lockdown to go plane spotting and there was only one flight that took off (a DHL) and just one arrive in all the time I was there

Also many flights still going to Iceland and Sweden aren’t cancelled as they aren’t classed as shit down routes yet

Wow yes - I just looked at the flight tracker, I'm also surprised how many are in the sky as I live on the flight path and it seems extremely quiet

I'm sure I read ages ago that there isnt enough room at airports for all planes to land, and we have to have a lot in the air at once. But now that I'm writing it down it doesn't quite sound right!