Originally Posted by
capricorn23
I would then suggest ANZ to cancel the concept of destination alternate , so they would spare fuel and make sure of no delay in the operations... diversion will be carried out only enroute and always back home. After all, the enroute airports diversion for emergencies are not so frequent.
I am felling sorry for the pax who were turned back to AKL and passengers awaiting this aircraft in JFK on that day but if you have had a chance to learn how it looks from the ops side, you would not make such a comment. Someone has suggested ops are just trying to avoid irregular pax handling like hotels and ground transfers. This is the last consideration to have place, at the end of a day there are people who are paid to do the things including those. Many years ago the airplane flying into EWR had to divert to JFK (no fuel to return back), and I dont remember exact reason but I well remember it took 6 (six) hours to arrange handing to deboard the passengers. And another 10 hours to get fuel. And that airline was not stupid, it just what it takes on a bad day (and JFK terminal closure by definition is a bad day). So the alternates in FPL are good if you dont have other options, you will be safe on the ground. Safe does not mean comfortable and served. If you wish to take a pilots perspective on that, such NZ diversion would cause a flush of all stand bys and offduty calls for the next week or so with many missing their kids birthdays etc. Passengers are the first no doubt and it was the best decision to make as little passengers unhappy as possible.
ps i don’t think you can divert an international (non-Canada) flight to LGA unless it is an emergency