Have you heard of ghost flights ?
Posted on 11th March 2021 at 09:19
Many, if not all airlines are having to operate ghost flights to cope with the impact of COVID-19 schedules, which of course has seen a devastating impact on the airlines movements around the world. A ghost flight is when a plane fly’s without passengers, and typically lands back at the airport they took off from. Sometimes these flights can be for as little as half an hour.
In normal times, a ghost flight would happen for a couple of reasons. It could be in order to go and collect stranded passengers from an airport that has a stricken plane. This happened to us a couple of years ago in Italy (very long story). It can also be in order to move a plane from one location to another. During the current covid pandemic, the vast majority of ghost flights are now in order to keep the aircraft “ticking over” (a bit like taking a car for a quick run to keep the fluids moving around the engine and gearbox).
Also, these ghost flights are also very important in order to maintain the pilots flying hours (to maintain the pilots flying licence). Many aircraft are in “storage” which means they have to be wrapped and sealed in order to be protected from a build up of dust and debris, especially in and around the engines and landing gear.
Lets hope we soon start seeing a return to the skies for these aircraft, as the world wont turn without people moving around the world – it’s a simple fact, as this coronavirus pandemic has proven.
Thanks for reading
Stay safe
PPTmk
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