Nottingham & BRUPAX
If the Commander of an aircraft elects to, or is requested to, divert to an airfield that is not the original destination then it is for a bloody good reason! The term 'Operational reasons' encompasses various scenarios and a couple of weeks ago I was operating a flight MAN-SSH-MAN and we had to divert to LGW due to Crew Flight Time Limitations (FTL's), crew have a finite ammount of time available for duty dependant upon the local time that the crew reported, number of sectors to be flown. If the crew is going to exceed the available ammount of duty hours, they have the flexibility to exercise Discretion and extend by an ABSOLUTE maximum of 3 hours (or 2 hours on a Level2 variation). If the ammount of discretion isn't sufficient then they have NO OTHER OPTION but to land at the nearest convenient airfield otherwise thet may have their licences suspended. It is a legal requirement NOT a decision of convenience.
It is inconvenient for the pax. to continue their journeys by coach but have a little consideration for the crew. To get to the stage where they've had to divert due to Crew FTL's they would have been on duty for around 16 hours and awake for a few more. They also have to endure a coach journey back to their home base then drive themselves home, after putting up with pax's comments, accusations and threats due to the delays.
I operate on Excels' 'trashy' 757&767 fleet. Last week I operated 3 short haul flights and arrived both at destination and base between 25 & 50 mins early. And guess what- on arriving back at base 50 mins early from a Turkish airfield, some pax demanded vouchers for beverages in the terminal because we had arrived TOO EARLY for the people who were meeting them!!!!!!
My advice is to anyone caught up in delays is just to accept the situation, remember that there is an Army of people working to get those pax,planes and crews to wherever they are supposed to be going and don't shoot the messengers or give the crews hassle otherwise you'll be offloaded.
Enjoy.