SOUTHEND - 4

[Lord Gumboil Jnr.]

I contacted Rennes Airport earlier in the week regarding the poor showing on their web-site and received the following response which I considered to be promising. I also brought their attention to the fact that the Rennes routes search engine displayed the flights at a far higher cost than could be obtained on the Flybe web-site and that this would certainly not help promote the route.

Part of their reply follows:-

'We acknowledge receipt of your email and thank you.
To meet your needs and our direct flight Rennes London Southend is present on various pages of our site that homepage.
I am attaching the links you can find information about this line:
It was not actually present on the English version of our site and was added.
For information, we are working on a new website which will be online in June. It will be more readable, more complete and you will find all the necessary information on flights from Rennes.
Regarding your comments on the prices displayed on our search engine, we will inform our trading partner.

- Rennes Aéroport, tous les departs de Rennes, vols, séjours, voyages
- Vol pas cher au départ de Rennes ? Billet d'avion en promo. # promo-3252
- Vol pas cher Rennes Londres - Low cost
- Les actualités de l'Aéroport de Rennes, nouveautés voyages au départ de Rennes # Anchor-3250
- Vols et voyages au départ de Rennes Aéroport'

So there you have it. I find it frustrating in the extreme that many of us out here appear at times to have more idea on how to proceed in these matters. Give Me Strength!

[LTNman]

At Luton the tower always want to know if a departing aircraft is intersection enabled, if it is the airport can handle more movements per hour, as less aircraft need to backtrack. I think the intersection of runway 26 gives a take-off run that is just a little longer than the runway at Southend.

Today listening to ground quite a few easyjet aircraft are not intersection enabled and require the full 2160m/ 7087ft (corrected Typo) even though the day hasn't warmed up yet. My question is does anyone know how far easyjet can fly with a full load from Southend on a hot summers day with no wind?

[Phileas Fogg]

the full 70087ft

I bet you say that to all the girls

[INeedTheFull90]

At LTN many crews will backtrack to avoid performing a TOGA takeoff. You may find that the aircraft will be perfectly able to use the intersection for departure however there is a reluctance to do so by crews.

[ericlday]

70087 ft that's a bl***y long runway !!!! (13.27 miles)

[Captain_Caveman]

Yesterday afternoon, two EZY departures were performance restricted. One (the FAO)fuel stopped in Nantes and the other offloaded a couple of passengers.

[Phileas Fogg]

Yesterday afternoon, two EZY departures were performance restricted. One (the FAO)fuel stopped in Nantes and the other offloaded a couple of passengers.

From SEN or from the hill in Bedfordshire?

[asdf1234]

SEN Easyjet distances

At ISA +15c an A319-100 with CFM56's can have a max take off weight of 158,000lbs approx (if I'm reading the chart correctly) when using SEN (5,900ft?).


The fuel/pax weight combo will dictate how far you can go but as a rough guide the lower max weight variant can easily achieve 1,000nm which fits most of SEN's destinations. The Canary Islands might be a problem however on a hot day with a heavy pax load!


Maybe someone from the dispatchers forum can offer an opinion?

[SENChris]

From SEN or from the hill in Bedfordshire?

I think from SEN, at least the flight that diverted to Nantes was, according to the departures board yesterday. That's slightly concerning given that yesterday wasn't even particularly hot (23/24 degrees).

[Phileas Fogg]

asdf1234,

How much baggage was there, what were the en-route winds, head, tail or still air, did the aircraft enjoy much of a headwind performance at SEN to get it in to the air, what were the alternate forecasts like for FAO and the other place, any dodgy forecasts then the more fuel needs to be carried, so many factors.

Many a year ago 'we' were operating a B737-300 between MEL and SYD, something like a 90 minutes block time, if not less than 90 minutes ... An hour and a half in a B737, "a piece of cake" one might say ... but then the destination and then alternate after alternate after alternate all had thunderstorms forecast ... We had to offload pax just to complete a 90 minute sector on a B737-300!

[asdf1234]

Phileas, agree entirely that giving range estimates is like measuring the proverbial piece of string. However the 158,000lbs max take of weight at ISA+15 is straight from the manual. In working through the options I've taken the empty weight of a 319-100 at 90,000lbs, put in 30,000lbs of pax and luggage leaving 38,000lbs for fuel. I think that an A319 would has a max of around 40,000lbs of useable fuel so 38,000lbs represents a good fuel load. Headwinds, IFR reserves, wx avoidance and fat pax all have a detrimental effect however for most of SEN's destinations which are within the 1,000nm range I'd say that a hot day shouldn't be too much of a problem. Again, if someone who works as a dispatcher could verify the above it would help make the picture clearer.

[LTNman]

and the other offloaded a couple of passengers.

I bet they were happy I have flown to Blackpool with Ryanair and they roped off the first 6 rows of seats. I wonder if easyjet sell all the seats available for the longer distance flights or just cut back on the seats sold?

[tws123]

Well this gives a bit more detail on the incident.


A plane carrying some of the TOWIE lot to Marbella was stranded as it was too heavy to take off! Yes, really! | heatworld.com

[Expressflight]

Assuming the FAO flight which routed via NTE departed on time yesterday the OAT would have been 23C and the wind 250/10. I seem to remember that Second Segment Climb considerations tend to be the limiting factor for R/W 24 departures, so it was perhaps that rather than actual runway length which made a fuel stop necessary.

I think easyJet originally blocked off half a dozen seats on SEN-FAO when it commenced in 2012 but I don't know if that is still the case. There was at least one instance last year where a large number of male golfers caused payload/range problems so perhaps it was something similar this time around. Perhaps someone here knows the actual details.

I think the A320 was unrestricted to FAO when it operated numerous times during April when some 180+ pax were carried on some departures I believe.

[tophat27dt]

Only 200kgs overweight? That's two blokes these days! I doubt if the A319 got onto the runway then the captain asked 4 people to get off! It's funny how some people don't understand what's going on. LOL

[LTNman]

Isn't the final fuel figure worked out when the crew get a load sheet from the dispatcher? Wasn't it an option to carry 200kg less fuel?

[tophat27dt]

LTNman

I guess it was a cock up. Even though they unloaded 4 volunteer ladies, it still had to refuel enroute, so having 200kgs less fuel it could have taken them after all and still refuelled. Yes!

[Expressflight]

But surely this wasn't the FAO flight; they wouldn't be going to FAO to film in Marbella. Their flight would have been the AGP which departs around the same time as the second FAO on Saturday.

It's starting to look as if there may have been some sort of mistake with fuel uplifts that day.

[tophat27dt]

for the past week, Stobart Air/Flybe flights always seems to end up with 45/60 minutes delay. Either they must reschedule, or look at the handling overseas. I am a fussy passenger. 15 minutes is ok...but not almost one hour...every day..it will kill the routes.

[Tagron]

Just catching up on EZY’s operational difficulties at SEN over the weekend and it looks to me that the principal component of the situation was the use of a low MTOW A319 (64000kgs) on the FAO and AGP services.

The EZY Source |
GINFO Database Search | Aircraft Register | Operations and Safety

The weekend weather pattern was characterised by a strong upper southerly flow due to the jetstream position, extending from southern Iberia right up to the UK. These headwinds would have significantly increased the flight time southbound and hence the fuel requirement, most likely in the order of several hundred kilos.

These two factors together would have generated a tight operational situation which might have been further exacerbated by a heavier than anticipated ZFW caused by (e.g) a high weight of checked in baggage.

Comments from anyone at easyJet ?