Originally Posted by
Lookleft
I don't disagree with your points and no judgement on your decisions to call in sick as I am sure many do. However the only person you are protecting is yourself. Another crew will still operate the service and be exposed to the vagaries of Ballina. My ultimate mitigation is if it gets too busy is to just divert to the Gold Coast. So far I haven't arrived at that point. I have a few other things that I do to mitigate the threat. No visual circuits, no RNP approaches on VMC days and no taxiing on runways conducting checks and running checklists.
Yes you are correct. It does protect me (either my life or licence) and I wish the next crew did not operate in there either.
I agree 100% regarding your own suggestions. I've never done it, but have heard of folks diverting to OOL due traffic. I also dislike when people do that RNP onto 24 (in VMC) from the south, especially when there is a perfectly good RNAV that has a published hold. Good points about the checks at the holding point as well. I guess we can just all do our best to mitigate the risk in our own way and hope it's enough. I just find the fact that we even have to have this conversation sad and frustrating.