captjns:
Do you know the Captain personally?
Question for risk management considerations on the airline's reported decision for restricting the flight envelope:
What effect on their operating costs does restricting cross wind landings to 25 kts have on the number of go arounds, or diversions (with attendant fuel costs and how to get pax to original destination costs)?
Put another way, what sort of data would you look at to estimate the number of flying days, and nights, which show that, at the airports this airline flies into, they can expect a crosswind component of 25 knots or higher? Airports the world over vary in the number of runways and varied orientation available, with designs typically chosen for the prevailing winds and terrain obstacles considered. For single strip runways, your options upon arrival aren't quite as nice as at multiple strip runways (with different orientations).
Let us presume that the analysts in the company arrived at "4.5% (or some other number) of our arrivals are likely to, based on five year historical trends, be made with cross wind components of 25 knots or higher."
Does their decision on risk, which involves runways of varying quality, perhaps avoid a big crash at the cost of a number of go arounds, diversions, or time (and thus fuel and schedule) spent negotiating with various ATC's for a different runway?
I'd be interested to see what went into that decision matrix when they decided to impose the crosswind restriction.