Fog

[Dog One]

Fog disrupted services out of Launceston last Saturday. In Monday's Examiner, some DJ passengers were upset at the treatment they received after missing their concert. DJ refunded the airfares, but not the concert tickets, as you would expect.

What caught my attention was the statement by Virgin Australia corporate communications manager (Melissa Thomson)

"Early morning fog is something that cannot predicted the evening before, people could not be advised that a flight was not going to be ready for take-off the next morning.

Ms Thomson said that although a Jetstar flight landed, Virgin operated on a different fog policy and its pilots would not land in fog." (Examiner 23rd May).

I wasn't aware that the 32 ILS had different landing minima for different operators

[Scamp Damp]

Maybe the fog was "Fluctuating Around the Minima" for Jetstar?

[waren9]

Why would you expect a refund for concert tickets?

Its not the airlines fault there is fog. One operator may have lucked in while it was fluctuating. Big deal.

Its called travel insurance.

[nitpicker330]

1/ Mel currently cannot use their CAT 3 due RWY works and Virgin 737 crews are currently not LWMO approved anyway, although I believe Cat 2 is coming soon.

2/ The Airport in question was LST which is around 300 miles south, not Mel.

[TrafficTraffic]

Nitpicker - if Ryanair flew to Launceston, they would call it Melbourne

TT
:rolleyes:

[tasdevil.f27]

Anyone who flies in & out of LST knows what the fog is like, sometimes you get in & sometimes you don't. Only takes a slight wind change to make a hole and you get in & the next misses out.

Was only a few winters ago that Jetstar was continually missing out & Virgin were getting in. The fog loves to sit right on the minima at LST, makes it more interesting....

The overnighting aircraft diverted back to MEL on friday night & hence no morning flight, then when that came back the next day it also missed out again... Just one of those things.

I still remember back in the mid 90's when the joint was closed for 3-4 days because of fog.

[RATpin]

Thanks for the local knowledge Mate.

[Fris B. Fairing]

Fog is controlled by the airlines.

It is used to delay flights.

[SwizzleStick]

Just to add to that interesting Saturday mornings events, the 6(ish)am QLink didn't taxi till roughly 8am and sat at the holding point for 45mins before returning to the bay, and trying again about an hour later to again sit at the holding point for a further 20 odd minutes before rolling to Melbourne

[Wally Mk2]

I used to pray to the Fog God & spent many a night shift pushing out zzzzzzzzzzzzz's:) I don't see what the big deal is fog is just cloud at ground level & we all fly thru cloud & don't give it a second thought,unless yr VFR:-)So toughen up you lot of princesses:E
Although I can recall a few times at EN when the bank runner boys slipped out of EN first thing of a mornin' in fog & when I got to the holding point pretty much right behind them I thought wouldn't take my model plane off in what I saw, or didn't see!:-) Like any DH/DA, it's open to interpretation:ok:

Perth the other week was a real mess I believe with the Fog God working O/T:E.


Wmk2