Waiting at the Airport: Delayed for 3 Days!

With much of Britain sweltering in summer heat, members of this forum may not have noticed that there is one UK airport which has been closed to all flights for three days now, causing enormous disruption to the communities which it serves. The Shetland Islands have been shrounded in fog since Monday, and flights to and from Sumburgh Airport, at the southern end of the Shetland mainland have all been cancelled, leaving a large backlog of passengers waiting to leave the islands. BA / Loganair’s regular flights to Aberdeen (5 daily), Edinbugh (2), Glasgow (1) and Kirkwall (2) have all been grounded. Today’s early morning services have been cancelled, but the airport authorities are hoping that some flights might operate later today.

Highland Airways and Atlantic Airway Flights have also been affected, with Monday afternoon’s non-stop jet service from London Stansted to Sumburgh, operated by Atlantic Airways, forced to overfly the Shetlands and drop its 31 Shetland bound passengers at Vagar in the Faroe Islands (more on this here).

For those unfamiliar with this Atlantic Airways service, the longest non-stop domestic sector in the UK, a note appeared on it in hidden europe e-news 2006 / 16 available online here.

So, as the temperature creeps towards 30 degrees again in England today, spare a thought for passengers still waiting at Sumburgh in damp fog, where the temperature has not risen above 15 this week.