Heavy fog at Melbourne causes 1400km detour for Jetstar passengers

[Slats7]

Heavy fog at Melbourne causes 1400km detour for Jetstar passengers | Herald Sun

A JETSTAR flight to Melbourne from Sydney has been diverted to Brisbane after fog blanketed Melbourne's airports.

That's what I call a long diversion!

 

[NM]

it seems they decided it was more important to get the aircraft back on track than the passengers back on track. I guess having the aircraft out of position and heavily delayed may have affected more than 130 passengers throughout the day. Better to have 130 people with a big delay than 500 passengers delayed later.

Interesting that the article says they circled Melbourne for an hour and were running low on fuel ... so they flew 800 miles, past at least 3 other major airports (CBR, SYD, OOL, ignoring regional airports). Can't have been too low on fuel . Have to wonder if they had that as a backup plan before departing SYD and ensured they had plenty of go-juice on board.

 

[Nigelinoz]

I take it the fog came in rather quickly otherwise they surely would not have left Sydney in the first place?.

 

[samh004]

That's crazy, would suck if you didn't have QP access.

 

[dajop]

That's crazy, would suck if you didn't have QP access.

No QP's on board a plane though!

 

[JohnK]

it seems they decided it was more important to get the aircraft back on track than the passengers back on track.

That is fantastic business practice from an airline that wants to be successful. I do not understand why people continue to support this poor excuse for an airline.

Jetstar is without a doubt right up there with Ryanair on the "Never to be flown" list....

 

[docjames]

I;'d actually say under pressure it wasnt too bad a decision.

either:

Delay/inconvenience 150 people

or


have rolling delays all day and disrupt potentially another 5 or 6 flights worth of 150 people.


Consider how annoyed you get when your flight near the end of the day is late, and then consider how much happier you'd be if the airline had sorted the problem earlier by just such a solution.

150 unhappy vs 900 happy (rather than the other way around).

I'd say fair decision.

 

[samh004]

No QP's on board a plane though!

Oh that's right, I forgot it was Jetstar. A very long flight to have nothing to eat or drink if you don't want to pay.

 

[NM]

That is fantastic business practice from an airline that wants to be successful. I do not understand why people continue to support this poor excuse for an airline.

Jetstar is without a doubt right up there with Ryanair on the "Never to be flown" list....

So given they were unable to land at MEL or AVV, they had to divert somewhere. So those 150 passengers were already inconvenienced. The difference for those passengers between returning to SYD or diverting to CBR or ADL verses diverting to BNE would have been less than 2 hours. So that is about 300 passenger hours of disruption. The passengers in MEL wanting to fly to BNE would already have been disrupted if this aircraft had gone to SYD, CBR or ADL anyway and were reaccommodated on later flights.

Now if the aircraft had gone to SYD, CBR or ADL and then later carried the 150 passengers to MEL, its reasonable to assume that a further 6 or more flights that day would have been disrupted by more than 3 hours each. If each of those flights has 150 passengers they now have over 2700 passenger hours of disruption.

So overall this decision does seem to make sense to me.

Can you suggest an alternate plan that would have been less Ryanair-like? an alternate plan that would have provided a more acceptable result all round? What should they have done in order to avoid addition to your "Never to be flown" list?

 

[moa999]

How did this not cause other people also to be inconvenienced??

Plane effectively flew
SYD-MEL-BNE-MEL (as it was apparently scheduled)

Passengers in MEL - Inconvenienced. There plane never landed, presumably JQ had to arrange another plane.

Passengers in BNE - Presumably most also inconvenienced. Article said only 18 ppl only got off the plane, so unless loads on both the original SYD-MEL flight and the subsequent BNE-MEL flights were very low, then some of the passengers in BNE would not have been able to joint the flight.

Am also amazed that they fly with enough fuel for a diversion that large.

 

[JohnK]

Can you suggest an alternate plan that would have been less Ryanair-like? an alternate plan that would have provided a more acceptable result all round? What should they have done in order to avoid addition to your "Never to be flown" list?

Firstly Jetstar was already on the "Never to be flown" list. This further entrenches them on my list. I do not like the attitude or the decision making process of this airline. They should be avoided at all costs.

Their number one priority should have been to minimise the inconvenience to the current passengers first. Why? Who knows what will happen later in the day or tomorrow or better still organise alternate flights for any passengers that are likely to be inconvenienced later in the day. But hang on they can't do that because they are a LCC.

Why take-off from SYD to start with knowing they could have serious weather problems in MEL? Leave those 150 passengers in SYD and try to find alternate flights for them to MEL instead of the possibility of leaving them stranded in BNE. Am I the only person who thinks the decision to load enough fuel to travel SYD-MEL with 150 passengers circle MEL 3 times and then fly off to BNE is questionable at best?

All Jetstar needs is to for people to praise their poor decision making process. That flight should never have taken off in the first place and once it did their priority should have been with those passengers.

 

[v8Statesman]

Am I the only person who thinks the decision to load enough fuel to travel SYD-MEL with 150 passengers circle MEL 3 times and then fly off to BNE is questionable at best?

How do we know the JQ flight would have refueled in AVV anyway? Isn't it possible it took on enough fuel in SYD to fly SYD-AVV-BNE anyway?

I remember during a refueling strike in PER, QF would fly ex SYD to PER with enough fuel to return to SYD without refueling.

 

[NM]

How do we know the JQ flight would have refueled in AVV anyway? Isn't it possible it took on enough fuel in SYD to fly SYD-AVV-BNE anyway?

That may very well have been the plan, shortening the turn-around time at AVV.

 

[NM]

Why take-off from SYD to start with knowing they could have serious weather problems in MEL?

Sounds like a no-win situation. What was the weather forecast for planned arrival time in AVV that day? Imagine the complaints if they held the aircraft in SYD until the fog had cleared and then departed? The howls would have been about how they should have left an hour earlier and been ready to land when the fog had cleared. Did Qantas hold all their MEL/AVV flights at their origins until the fog had cleared? What about DJ? Was JQ alone in sending flights towards MEL/AVV before the fog had cleared?

It really does seem to me that there would have been complaints if they:

• Delayed departure from SYD until AVV was no longer fogged in
• Diverted to CBR or ADL and disrupted schedules for the rest of the day
• Diverted to BNE and cause major disruption to one flight and got others back on track

All Jetstar needs is to for people to praise their poor decision making process. That flight should never have taken off in the first place and once it did their priority should have been with those passengers.

There we differ in our views.

I wonder how TT coped with the fog in Melbourne that day?

 

[straitman]

Firstly Jetstar was already on the "Never to be flown" list. This further entrenches them on my list. I do not like the attitude or the decision making process of this airline. They should be avoided at all costs.

That is entirely your opinion and you are entitled to it. Obviously many others disagree with you.

Their number one priority should have been to minimise the inconvenience to the current passengers first. Why? Who knows what will happen later in the day or tomorrow or better still organise alternate flights for any passengers that are likely to be inconvenienced later in the day. But hang on they can't do that because they are a LCC.

Youdon't know, I don't know and nobody here knows and we will never know how this part of the decision process was worked out. That may have been the plan but things become dynamic once airborne. ATC may have required them to hold for 60-90 min to get a slot if they wanted to go back to SYD (not uncommon).

Why take-off from SYD to start with knowing they could have serious weather problems in MEL? Leave those 150 passengers in SYD and try to find alternate flights for them to MEL instead of the possibility of leaving them stranded in BNE. Am I the only person who thinks the decision to load enough fuel to travel SYD-MEL with 150 passengers circle MEL 3 times and then fly off to BNE is questionable at best?

What a load of uninformed rubbish :!:

That is how the industry works. The pilots, not the company, would have made the decision to depart SYD with the expectation, based upon the forecast, that they would get straight into MEL or have a short holding period. When this did not occur the pilots would then look at their options and the best one, based upon company, fuel and other aircraft requirements was obviously BNE. Unfortunately the actual weather and the forecast weather frequently are different. The flight is and must always be planned upon the forecast weather.

All Jetstar needs is to for people to praise their poor decision making process. That flight should never have taken off in the first place and once it did their priority should have been with those passengers.

The outcome would have been similar no matter which airline happened to be painted on the side.

 

[futaris]

Flight delay sequel to eight-hour ordeal | News.com.au Top stories | News.com.au

After an eight-hour trip from Sydney to Melbourne yesterday – via Brisbane – passengers booked on two flights from Avalon to Sydney today were told their services had been cancelled.

The saga continues...

 

[dajop]

Flight delay sequel to eight-hour ordeal | News.com.au Top stories | News.com.au

The saga continues...

Good that they chose to bus pax to MEL from AVV. If I am to believe what I've read about Ryanair, pax in similar situations are told to make their own way to their replacement airport, and in some instances are booked on flights not 4 hours but 2 days later.

 

[Slats7]

Sounds like a no-win situation. What was the weather forecast for planned arrival time in AVV that day? Imagine the complaints if they held the aircraft in SYD until the fog had cleared and then departed? The howls would have been about how they should have left an hour earlier and been ready to land when the fog had cleared. Did Qantas hold all their MEL/AVV flights at their origins until the fog had cleared? What about DJ? Was JQ alone in sending flights towards MEL/AVV before the fog had cleared?

It really does seem to me that there would have been complaints if they:

• Delayed departure from SYD until AVV was no longer fogged in
• Diverted to CBR or ADL and disrupted schedules for the rest of the day
• Diverted to BNE and cause major disruption to one flight and got others back on track

There we differ in our views.

I wonder how TT coped with the fog in Melbourne that day?

I agree, good post.

 

[JohnK]

That is entirely your opinion and you are entitled to it. Obviously many others disagree with you.

And the many others that agree with me are better off.

What a load of uninformed rubbish :!:

Thank you. I was asked to suggest alternate plans. It was an opinion. Not fact and I never claimed it was fact.

The outcome would have been similar no matter which airline happened to be painted on the side.

Really? I wonder how many QF and DJ flights has similar issues yesterday or carry over issues this morning?

 

[v8Statesman]

Really? I wonder how many QF and DJ flights has similar issues yesterday or carry over issues this morning?

Maybe crazydave98 can tell us how DJ went. Anyone have information of QF/TT activitiy?