VB pax unload

[rocket66]

Morning lads,

Just seen on the news that VB unloaded 2 pax after the skipper deemed the aircraft too heavy. From what I understand the pax had seats so that wasn't the issue, but too heavy? Surely 2 pax plus bags would tip a 73 over the scales?

I however do not fly jets yet so for those that do what's your opinions?

Rocket

[SilverSleuth]

Standard practice all over the world by all airlines. I have been on qantas, cathay and ansett flights over the years where they announce the flight is oversold and need "volunteers" to hop off. Usually you are well compensated (free flight) so I would if I wasn't time limited. If they are already onboard it is due to operational reasons.

[Capt Fathom]

A few reasons why this could occur.

Just a couple of the top of my head.....

+ Last minute defect that may require a weight reduction due to perfomace.
+ The aircraft may have been over fuelled.
+ A long sector that due to weather/headwinds, was not able to accomodate the usual payload.

Unfortunately, if the loadsheet says your 1 kg overweight, you have to get rid of that 1 kg!

Loose ends are not good! :uhoh:

[neville_nobody]

More likely a short flight with significant weather holding/alternates and a landing weight limitation.

[hoss58]

Good morning all and happy easter.

While 2 pax and bags (lets call it 200kg total) might seem a small amount of weight in the overall scheme of things i doubt any pilot here would like to be in the witness box at the coronial inquirey when the question was asked "'you knew you were overweight but did nothing about it- why???"'

Mr Murphy has a horrible habit of rearing his head at the worst possible time.

Fly safe and play hard.

Hoss58

[rodchucker]

Media reporting it was due to extra fuel due to weather.

Passengers refused and AFP removed them.

Suppose if the two weren't happy they could have kept everyone in Melbourne.

Bit harsh on DJ what else could they do.

[Going Nowhere]

Passengers kicked off Virgin Blue flight, as Jetstar, Qantas passengers' luggage left behind | News.com.au (http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/two-angry-holidaymakers-frogmarched-off-plane/story-e6frfq80-1226043925136)

MEL-DPS flight in a 737. No wonder! :=

[PPRuNeUser0163]

While the crew were 100% right to do this .. I have a chuckle to myself that they were likely above mrw/mtow anyways with standard weights being used :)

[mates rates]

This is what happens when you are operating an aircraft to the limit of it's range.Occasionally there will be operational requirements that put the aircraft over this limit.Commercial should be aware of this and accept that sometimes these occurances will happen.In the future I would suspect the DPS flights will be A330 and that will fix the problem.

[Ken Borough]

Shoot me down in flames for saying this but offloading passengers like this at the last minute surely has to say a lot about the professionalism of those at Virgin. They would have had a number of options that could have been adopted but apparently took the easy way out - for a start, better planning would have gone a long way to avoid this unfortunate situation that stuffed up the holiday plans of a couple of innocent punters.

[MyNameIsIs]

Ken, do you not think that the ops/crew would have looked at other options before going for the pax offload?
Offload non-essential freight/gear?
Burn some extra taxi fuel to get below MTOW?
Double-check all the weight, fuel, performance figures?


I myself have decided to turn and burn for an extra ~15 mins rather than dump gear- I ended up a little late but the powers that be were happy with my justification for the delay and burning some excess juice.

Planning for the unplanned is sometimes quite difficult!


I'm also pretty sure that not 100% of the passengers on ANY flight "HAVE" to get to their destination- there are always some that could probably go on another flight and be happy with a freebie ticket in return. Maybe there were people on board this particular flight that were too selfish to volunteer to jump off which in turn played a part in "stuffing up the holiday plans of a couple of innocent punters."

[Chadzat]

Seriously Ken, I know Im taking your bait hook line and sinker here. But flying your C172 on weekends has nothing to do with the problem faced by the crew here. Of course better planning could have helped, but how many different scenario's pop up in Aviation that you just have to "wear it" and take an unpopular decision so that the flight goes ahead safely.

That flight may be predicated on a nominal 30mins holding at DPS, so they sell X amount of seats. There may have been a last minute amended TAF issued which had a TEMPO for arrival, so straight away you dont have the weight for another 30mins fuel. Rather than offload pax immediately, they may have been waiting to see if there were a few no-shows so that people who HAVE turned up do not get shafted. But everyone probably turned up. So what do you do then Ken? Here is something which has been out of the control of the crew and they have to deal with it. The problem wont just magically go away with someone whinging about it. :ugh:

[forgetabowdit]

...offloading passengers like this at the last minute surely has to say a lot about the professionalism of those at Virgin.

I think taking them says more... Maybe there were other options, maybe they identified that they didn't have a better overall outcome than removing two people. We don't know the outcome for these two people either.

As for last minute changes, I have been in the flight deck at the gate in BNE, not far from push back, as weather changes have been applied to SYD and we needed to call the refueller back to cover a TEMPO that had been upgraded from INTER. Do we pretend we didn't see it before dispatch? Our airline (like most I have no doubt) relly on the pilots containing costs at our end by managing fuel for a flight between what is LEGALLY required and that which is REASONABLY required. I would argue that Min Fuel to SYD (or DPS for that matter!) is not reasonable when experience tells you that there is any number of possabilities that will require you to have more - RWY change, TFC holding, speed control etc...

This descision of a fuel figure and ballancing of factors is all far from the awareness of most in the 60 to 40 minutes prior to push back (as it should be), and largely irrelevant in terms of effects on passenger uplift - EXCEPT when the flight is limiting. BNE - SYD in the 737 will never be (short of if there were FG all over the east coast maybe), but MEL/SYD/BNE/ADL - DPS and PER-HKT in the 737 often is. No question, the 737 is not ideal for these routes everyday of the week. The plannng departments try to be proactive by capping the flight with a reduced total passenger load from the outset based on anticipated fuel requirements, but with any late deteriorations in the WX requirements, when using this aircraft on this route, sometimes there are no alternatives when it comes down to kilograms at the final stages.

As to these two passengers, were they taken off and put straight onto another carrier? Where they compensated with $100's of dollars and free flights? Where they accomodated in hotels at no cost? Who knows, but these are common recovery techniques.

Was it necessarily better to send the flight with those 2 passangers but without 10 passegers luggage instead? Should they have offloaded the catering? No potable water to flush the toilets? Pick which headline you would rather read really...

I would have done the same thing as these two pilots.

Offloading passengers who have paid money to be sitting on your aircraft is naturally no fun, and doing so comes with a full awareness of what the implifications are for the passengers - be it Easter or not.

However making measured and timely descisions and operating within a myriad of legal, commercial and practical guidelines is what the job is all about. Day in, day out.

-Bring on the A330's!

Forgetabowdit

[captwawa]

i heard an aircraft went U/S in Bali, therefore there was a back log of pax from somewhere, that needed to get to bali, and sounds like they worked it out well to only off load 2 pax, not 20 or so..

[Fris B. Fairing]

Capt Fathom has hit the nail on the head:

Unfortunately, if the loadsheet says your 1 kg overweight, you have to get rid of that 1 kg!

In days gone by, the problem might have gone away with some creative accounting but in this age of litigation and disengaged workforces it's a no brainer. While it is usual practice to offload deadload before pax (and assuming nil cargo) pax are heavier than bags so you will upset fewer customers by offloading pax before bags. If you offload the required weight in randomly chosen "last on" bags and have the courtesy to advise the affected pax, you run the risk of an even bigger bun flight than if you "appoint 2 volunteers". Was there also a trim issue which determined the chosen solution?

[captsf]

Yeah Ken, have to agree with the others on this one mate. Airlines are always overbooking flights purely for the fact that alot of our punters dont make it to the airport or are late etc. It's common practise. This seems like one of those rare occasions when pax actually did have to be off loaded for what ever operational requirement that deemed it necessary. At least they have the flying publics safety in mind and still manage to turn a profit! Pretty funny that they had to get the AFP involved, i'm surprised that no one had the courtesy to hop off and take a free flight for their troubles!

[parabellum]

From my experience in the world of charters, using standard weights for pax and bags, the final payload weight arrived at is, at best, an educated guess. Experience shows that, on holiday flights, as oppose to business flights, the load is likely to be a bit under as there will be a fair proportion of women and children.

In the instance quoted here, if there were no other considerations and standard weights were being used, I would have been inclined to increase the taxi burn on the load sheet by 170kgs and stay legal.

[Gunnadothat]

On a positive note, VB have now probably guaranteed a 10 point improvement on on-time departures.
No one would dare being the last on board after this episode. :D

[built4flying83]

I reckon the VB pilots would of done the best option available to them in this case.

In saying that though i have noticed certain types of captains in a different operation that are abit gungho with the removal of payload before hearing all the updated facts. It tends to happen on public holidays where they have been called in. Sorta like giving the bird to management. :O

[rocket66]

I was thinking the same thing, extend taxi to burn the extra weight. Personally, and I'll say again I haven't flown jets, this may have been the best option.

My understanding as I'm currently working on ATPL performance, is that a 727 has 150kg allocated to be burnt by the time it reaches it's BRW, In this is the case than surely a full plane of happy pax is the best way to go?

Unfortunatly the world we live in is full of threating litigation and media that can have a story to millions in just minutes. I think the pilots did the correct thing legally but may have avoided the media attention by just burning the extra fuel in taxi.

Just my two cents,

Rocket

[gobbledock]

Shoot me down in flames for saying this but offloading passengers like this at the last minute surely has to say a lot about the professionalism of those at Virgin. They would have had a number of options that could have been adopted but apparently took the easy way out - for a start, better planning would have gone a long way to avoid this unfortunate situation that stuffed up the holiday plans of a couple of innocent punters.

Ken, you shot yourself down in flames with your nonsensical repsonse. You once again prove that you are possibly the dumbest, ill-informed, uneducated aviator to ever grace the pages of Pprune. Every time you speak a large roll of toilet paper is required to mop up the trail of excrement you leave behind.
It is time you took your laminated plane photos and bottle of baby oil back into the bathroom and fade away.
Please, be gone with you and your stupid comments, tosspot.....

[puff]

There may be a logical answer of why(crew duty?) - but why not drop into DRW for a tech-stop ? I know AN used to sometimes have to drop into KAL or ASP on BNE-PER flights in the early low MTOW A320s, and that at times Qflink have to drop into Weipa outa Horn on the Q300 so as to not offload pax ?

I know the tech stop is not ideal or cheap, but rightly or wrongly DJ has copped a lot of bad press over this, I doubt a tech-stop would have made the press.

[Ushuaia]

You just beat me to it, Puff, I was posting the same thing but being too long winded (even saying I tended to agree with Ken!!!!!). But essentially I was saying: why not lob into Alice or something? This is pretty poor stuff.....

[Oldmate]

If you burn the extra fuel on taxi, then it will not be there at the other end of the flight to cover the tempo requirement or whatever it is needed for.

[Ushuaia]

And exactly right, Oldmate - part of my first long winded post. too many people confusing Ramp weights/MTOW/taxi fuels etc. This was all about having more fuel AT THE OTHER END, not about having too much weight at take off.

[dizzylizzy]

I believe PER-HKT occasionally has a tech stop on the lay in PHE or nearby?

[rocket66]

Oldmate, your correct. Something I didn't consider. The taxi fuel isn't co sidered in the MBRW for the flight becuase it's burnt prior to take off. Too much sugar for me today, damn rabbits!

All in all it seems it depends on what point of view your looking from. Managment may say ditch the pax and go, beancounters will definitley say that also, if your customer service orientated you'd say make a stop to get some gas.

The only down side is the bloody media got a hold of it and made a song and dance about it which amounted to bad publicity. In saying this I doubt very much if they decided to make a stop the media wouldn't bother reporting on it either so your cactus either way.

Well done lads, seems you made a good call.

Rocket

[parabellum]

This was all about having more fuel AT THE OTHER END, not about having too much weight at take off.

I find it hard to believe that a B737 would still be overweight for landing after a five hour flight to Bali unless it was tankering fuel and if it was then it would be possible to increase the flight burn by 170kgs on the load sheet to bring the a/c back within landing weight.

Possibly much more to this event than is obvious?

[Ushuaia]

Parabellum.... hello?? They WANTED the bloody fuel at the other end! They needed a TEMPO or an alternate or something, right? And they couldn't put it, plus flight fuel, plus variable reserve, plus fixed reserve, plus approach allowance, plus X+2 passengers on and be under MTOW in Melbourne! They were going to be about 200kg too heavy ex MEL.

Quickest and cheapest solution? reduce the pax count by 2. So now have all the above fuel (inc the operational reqt) and X passengers. Now they are down to MTOW in MEL and have the full operational requirement at the other end.

Better solution from customer point-of-view? Take less fuel out of MEL, leave extra 2 punters on, lob into AS or DN. Gas up there for the next sector to WADD - less flight fuel, less reserves, can still get pax and operational reqt fuel (Alt, TEMPO, whatever) on!

Disclaimer: I am guessing and making presumptions about the precise circumstances. But it'll be something like this. Nothing to do with being overweight for landing!!

(why am I here!? :ugh:)

[parabellum]

I think you have missed the point I made in my first post Ushuaia.

And not so much of the,Parabellum.... hello?? They WANTED the bloody fuel at the other end!

If you don't mind.

[Icarus2001]

where they announce the flight is oversold

BUT read the post...

the pax had seats so that wasn't the issue

So it was not oversold then was it?

[Eastwest Loco]

This amazes me.

I guess the old airline culture has screamed into the never-never.

Logic would decree offload 10 bags, contact Garauda and ask if they can uplift them. That should give you a new max BRW under the limit.

Have DPS ready to organise delivery after clearance from the GA aeroplane.

That is SOP for all majors I am aware of when something goes awry. Slap a rush tag on the bag and ensure it is delivered post haste on arrival.

Now - DJ may have note embraced agreements with others they share they skies with and did not have that option.

If not, then why not?

Just because they operate outside the legacy carrier mindset doesn't mean they cant use some of the more logical traditional past and present practices of the rest of the team.

Having worked F27-100 aircraft at Wynyard one learnt that a hot day and a full ship meant the Crew, their lunch and the passengers was all that was going. Ansett would uplift what they could and the rest was on its way to LST for the DC9.

I just find the decision ridiculous when they could have thrown 10 bags on SQ or GA over SIN or CGK, advised the passengers on board that some bags had been delayed and avoided potentially millions of dollars damage in public perception from the negative publicity.

People are defending the call by the crew in earlier posts, but I am sorry but I consider it poorly thought out and amateur.

That may well be a function of lack of directional training.

Think it over DJ. A lot of damage beyond the 2 bumped passengers has been done.

I now sit back waiting for the bath I will no doubt get.

Best all

EWL

[Worrals in the wilds]

The only down side is the bloody media got a hold of it and made a song and dance about it which amounted to bad publicity.

Over the years, I've heard of a lot of pax being marched off a lot of aircraft by a lot of AFP (some of which made the media) but I hadn't heard of people actually having to be escorted off for this reason. I thought the traditional airline method was to keep upping the incentives until you got a couple of volunteers? Make it a free flight, add an extra night in a nice hotel, throw in dinner etc, etc until someone hops off. Isn't it? :confused:

Were there any incentives offered or was it just a too bad so sad? Virgin certainly haven't said that they offered anything as compensation.

As a pax, I wouldn't have been very happy with a too bad so sad; not if I'd got there on time and paid for a proper ticket on Virgin who are trying to assure everyone that they're not a LCC anymore. I don't blame the pilots for doing what had to be done (nor am I an airline pilot so I wouldn't have a clue about their options) but the whole way it was done sounds a bit average.

[Sunstar320]

I dont think these flights are overbooked, they are usually capped around the 130 mark.

Perfect routes for the 739 with an extra fuel tank. You will find Lion doing this to avoid capped flights and will commence flights into Melbourne this year.

[parabellum]

Not from me EW, I suspect, as an old hand, you are well familiar with the long standing paper practice of increasing the taxi burn off to achieve a MTOW restriction and the cruise burn to achieve a landing weight restriction if we are talking relatively minuscule amounts that are almost certainly covered by the use of standard weights.

If this a/c had a MTOW of, say, 60,000kgs then two pax at 200 kgs will be equal to 00.33% of MTOW.

The last thing an operator should do is offload pax, unfortunately initiative and lateral thinking are taking a back seat whilst a cavalier attitude is creeping into some parts of the industry.

[Oakape]

Exactly right, Eastwest Loco, for large weights. Smaller weights can be handled more flexibly, though.

Regarding large weight problems, I had to take all pax bags off to get out of Wellington for Brisbane once (ROK as only alt, 34 at WLG as tailwind too high for 16).

Bags sent to CHC to make the next flight to BNE. Made PA to that effect & had one guy say that he needed his bags, as he was connecting to LHR. Left his on & took crew bags off, to be sent to CHC only, as we were doing BNE-CHC once we got to BNE. Also told the pax in layman terms that the takeoff performance would look very good to them, but that we had to cover the engine failure senario, which was much worse.

Everybody was happy to make the flight & get their bags later in the day. As far as I am aware there was not one complaint.

Flight Ops felt that the number of seats should have been limited out of WLG for performance reasons from the get go, but commercial wouldn't listen. As most flights managed to get out over time, perhaps they were right. Big picture stuff I guess.

[Oakape]

Not from me EW, I suspect, as an old hand, you are well familiar with the long standing paper practice of increasing the taxi burn off to achieve a MTOW restriction and the cruise burn to achieve a landing weight restriction if we are talking relatively minuscule amounts that are almost certainly covered by the use of standard weights.



For 200kg, you are spot on parabellum. It happens often with switched on crews.

[Ken Borough]

For the record, I did not criticize the operating crew. Rather, I was having a shot at Virgin's "planning" and the fact that the organisation took the easiest decision of all. As some of the nay-sayers will have read after having made their rather hysterical, vitriolic and insulting posts, there were several options that could have been sucessfully implemented. It's not rocket science.

Challenges such as that presented to DJ the other day are normally outside the scope of VBAs/LCCs so it ought not come as a great surprise that they screw up when so confronted. Would Qantas have offloaded SLF in like manner or would they have had a variety of strategies in place to solve the dilemma?

[gobbledock]

As some of the nay-sayers will have read after having made their rather hysterical, vitriolic and insulting posts

Ken, did you call ? Did they let you out of the retirement home this evening ? Please go away so I do not have to taunt you a second time.
Also, I know you are old and your sight is poor but please use a smaller font when posting, your large bolded letters are like you in general -somewhat space wasting and adding an unnecessary carbon footprint.
Now, again, please, be gone with you, you ridiculous human being.....

[porch monkey]

Parabellum, please help me understand what you are saying here. Are you arguing to put the extra 200kg on and simply up the taxi fuel allowance on paper, thereby taking off overweight? Or are you saying park at the holding point or wherever and burn the excess? The point was to have the fuel at the other end, so (b) doesn't work. Help me out here?

[Mr. Hat]

Hands up who on here knows all the facts?...

Case closed.

[sinala1]

What he said ↑

Especially EWL... I have, for many years, respected you as a learned and knowledgable poster on these forums (and continue to do so) - but was surprised to see you jumping to conclusions & a bit of diatrabe without knowing anything other than the 'facts' presented on this forum.

No one has presented any coal-face facts about the compensation & recovery options offered to the pax involved, nor about the decision making processes involved in this case - so any comments here are only pure speculation.

[Bumpfoh]

It's not a great PR look is it??

EWL summed it up best, late bags aint going to spoil your Bali trip too much surely, so long as the reason is given in simple lay terms I imagine most would accept the inconvenience with a token gesture of compensation.

The other question WRT additional fuel being required is at what thrust rating do these aircraft operate?

I'm led to believe 24K where as they are capable of 26K but for VB being tight fisted at the time of delivery would have avoided these circumstances on the majority of these "long" sectors with the additional thrust assuming there was a performance issue and they were not at MTOW associated with the assumed holding requirement.

Jumping into fox hole now.:p

[Anthill]

What was the TAF for destination and alternate?

[parabellum]

thereby taking off overweight?


Don't sound so surprised. 200kgs, if it is 'overweight' is no more than the water left on the airframe after a shower of rain and if you are using standard weights on a charter/holiday flight you can pretty much guarantee you are underweight. Try and get the picture, 200kgs set against 60,000kgs is inconsiderable. If you are stuck for such a minuscule amount you must get the AFM out, not the quick reference handy cards, go through them chart by chart, temperature, slope, wind, pressure altitude etc. 200kgs will be a lot less than the thickness of a pencil.

[Eastwest Loco]

The facts that we DO know Mr Hat are that 2 pax were bumped after they had boarded.

What we do not know is if it was a change in the enroute WX, local temperature or some other external factor.

One would hope that it wasn't just the load controller suddenly discovering that the flight was over maximum brake release weight after it had boarded. If that is the case they need their arse kicked all the way to Denpasar.

sinala1 - I was operating on the known facts as above which are very straight forward and ignore what the cause was.

Unless all the baggage was already offloaded which is highly unlikely then I believe the wrong action was taken. Simple knee jerk reaction without thinking the situation through.

I am assuming that we are dealing with contractors who may or may not be penalised if an aeroplane pushes back late and this may have prompted brain fade in getting a swift solution. I am happy to be corrected on all the preceeding posts if necessary as I am totally unsure.

Another possibility to get around the problem that has been floated is burn extra in the taxi. Don't like that at all as the required block and reserve fuel is eroded.

Personally I would not be happy signing that aeroplane out ans the taxi fuel calculation should not come into the maximum BRW.

It wasn't a Goroka departure where you could jam on 16.5 of flap at vr and then stick the nose down into the valley to build airspeed.

What I was talking about was the basic culture of problem solving and how DJ bought themselves a worldload of hurt through a poor and untrained decision.

Best all

EWL

[sinala1]

a poor and untrained decision.


Which, if you were there and present for the entire decision making process, I would agree with - but you were not, and as such your statement is baseless.

I respect you immensely EWL but in the spirit of healthy debate, I disagree with you in this case. You are making generalisations about a process you had no involvement in whatsoever. Of course there are "best practice" procedures that apply, and to which you refer - but who knows what extenuating circumstances applied to this specific case?

[kimir]

Parrabellum, the 737-800 MTOW is approx 79 tonne, carries 20.8 tonne of fuel and ML - DPS is still a long way in the 73, especially if there is weather at the other end or the ALT add to that headwinds coming into winter. Like someone else posted, they needed the fuel at the other end. Pencil thickness wouldn't have come into it either, dont use those charts for TOW calculations.

[catseye]

whilst bumping the pax may fix the one flight problem is this a symptom of a poor flight planning and management system sitting behind the operating crew??

Some things to consider

- change the cruise schedule> is a long range cruise avbl. Was it used.
- do DJ have a long range cruise table in the flight planning system.
- alternate airway or haggle with ATC for a direct track to reduce the track miles.
- does the trip need high speed cruise due to crew duty time. Is this an out and back trip or do the crew slip in DPS??? could time be made up on the return leg to stay in duty time limits.
- is there a set heading allowance that could be dropped by using an alternate runway vis depart direct on track. haggle this with ATC
- is the AUSOTS system best route of the day. don't recall it being calculated for a 737-800
- what payload study allowed commercial staff to sell the full capacity ( bums on seats)
- what statistical winds were used to determine the commercial planned payload . what percentage winds were used. Do DJ do payload studies.
- did the dispatcher doing the plan advise ops control that an offload was higly likely. Ops control should have known about this hours prior to the crew having to fix the problem. Ops control system failure!!!!
- was the dispatcher overloaded and just turning out sausage flight plans.
- did the crew take fuel above flight planned.
- what was the tail number fuel burn correction on that airframe. Could an aircraft swap to one with a lower fuel burn get them there?? Is there a procedure to only task light fuel burn aircraft on payload limited sectors.
- did the dispatcher ( flight planner ) try changing planned level or just take the levels that came out of the system. how many alternate plan options were tried.
- is the fuel policy being applied correctly?????
- can you reduce the potable water??
- any freight or low priority bags?

Pretty big system failure sitting behind this event which should have been sorted before the crew got the cops involved.
:=

[Oakape]

Oh, for crying out load - it was 200kgs!!! To off load people for 200kgs extra fuel is ridiculous in the extreme.

I'm sorry, but at cruise fuel flows that is approx 5 mins flying time & anyone with half an ounce of airmanship could have found a way around it legally. Either there is a hell of a lot more to the story (and there usually is) or someone dropped the ball big time!

Perhaps some of you guys should step back from the trees a bit & take a look at the forest!

[Eastwest Loco]

sinala I totally accept and understand your point.

There may well have been more going on than is evident beyond the max BRW problem that may even come down to the bumped passengers and a shoddy cover up.

We may indeed never know.

On the simple cause and effect I still stand by bumping baggage/freight and handling that but as you rightly point out we do not know the whole story.

I know what I would have done, but hell - I have made some massive miscalls over the years.

Don't make errors often even now, but when I do they are normally of Biblical proportions and cost me bucks.:sad:

Best regards

EWL

[ASX200]

Just reduce the CI to 0 that will save at least 200kg

[lederhosen]

The comments about 200kg making no difference do not seem to have grasped the simple concept that the captain signs for the flight on the basis that is legal. If weather is such that extra is needed, lets say as an example potentially below minimum weather forecast, then the flight plan lists the extra diversion fuel required to suitable alternates.

Max landing weight is mostly the limiting factor if, as you hope, you can land at your destination. How you get the weight down is the issue. We almost always offload bags as that is easiest in the short term as this thread demonstrates. However I note that the newspaper article also describes passenger's frustration at having their bags unloaded.

[Ken Borough]

Catseye

You're way too smart for some of the Neanderthals around here. You have spelled out many of the options and questions I had in mind. I wonder if the deep-thinkers will try to shut you up as well? It will be fascinating to know the DJ response to yr many justified questions and comments. Well put.:D:D:D