Wycombe - if you look at the map you will see it is relatively close to KEF and thus not 100% reliable for a weather alternate eg heavy snow, although the weather on each side of the bay can be quite different depending on wind - it is that, not the LDA, that made it so. It was regularly used in good weather as the No1 alternate 'in the old days' (2003-5'ish). Having said that, by the time the 737 went back in ?2008?, one of the glitterati in Astraeus had declared it 'too short' for 737s. Before that we did actually occasionally use it for planned movements. It was fine. I have no idea what the Astraeus 757s were using until then. Incidentally, I believe the 757 is a better 'stopper' than a 737?