You don’t of course have to divert to the filed alternate. I can remember Venice being below Cat 3A weather and ending up in Bologna. The filed alternates were Trieste which was enjoying the same coastal fog as Venice and Klagenfurt which required special sim training (which in my case had expired). I called ops from the briefing room in advance about this and was told to take as much fuel as I could and use my best judgement where to go, which after about 90 minutes holding at Chioggia is what I did. Not as radical as an Easy I was behind in Pristina who on going missed reported he was diverting back to Zurich where he had started. Ironically I actually saw the lights at MDA and got in. Topswiss did not reappear so presumably returned to base. These days with Acars you normally get pretty clear directions from Ops what they would like.
Last edited by lederhosen; 4th Dec 2021 at 20:09.