QF1 in BAH

[ferris]

It seems the questions about diversions ex-Dubai have been answered, as the crew on the QF1 last night would've had a very long night after being unable to accept the holding on offer and lobbed in Bahrain.

I understand the holding in Dubai was running around 60 mins at the time (with wx).

[haughtney1]

To be fair, the wx was pretty rank yesterday in DXB...lots of dust and wind followed by decent TS's at about 2130 local for a good few hours.
Cleaned up all the dust and gave my lawn a good watering:ok:

[PPRuNeUser0198]

Fantastic electrical show last night in AUH...

[framer]

The weather was not good. They had fuel to divert. They diverted. What part of that is inexcusable? Sounds like airline operations 101 to me.

[Capn Bloggs]

How many times was this posted here prior to operations starting?
Route Manual Revision 1 details:

New section: "Consult Prune before operating on new routes".

Arriving anywhere new without worst case fuel is inexcusable.
What would be worst-case fuel?

[oz in dxb]

QF1 in BAH
It seems the questions about diversions ex-Dubai have been answered, as the crew on the QF1 last night would've had a very long night after being unable to accept the holding on offer and lobbed in Bahrain.

I understand the holding in Dubai was running around 60 mins at the time (with wx).

Holding time was given by UAE as 2 hours! Left the hold after about 45 mins.

[haughtney1]

Holding time was given by UAE as 2 hours! Left the hold after about 45 mins

Just wait till they pitch up at Desdi when there's a bit of Fog about:E, I remember one morning being told by UAE ( the "a team" was on) that our EAT was in 343 minutes, seem to recall the Lufty crew behind us asking for their EAT in local time...then when asked why..they said "so veee can kalkulate zeee overtime!" :E:E:E

[Going Boeing]

Where the hell are the fleet managers?

The fleet managers were "managing risk" which in plain speak means they do everything at minimum cost until they get caught out and then start micro-managing the operation and assign the extra fuel to be carried.

[ferris]

ex 380: Yes, there was one EK diversion into Bahrain (262).

Whilst wx is unusual, holding (traffic) is a nightly feature of DBX, and the average delay just gets longer. You cannot keep double digit growth year-upon-year without consequences.

At least the A380 can bounce straight up to a decent level for the onwards caravan.

[schlong hauler]

What a stupid post by the ill informed. no where has there been a discussion about how much fuel was uplifted. Was it full to a regulated MTOW? Did the Taf they planned on have T.S. on it? The weather can change and sometimes no matter how much information you have mother nature can play a better hand.

[waren9]

cue someone posting a taf that was available at departure.

[ferris]

From the locked thread....
Plazbot #351
To counter the thread drift, how much holding gas are Qantas turning up with? With the runway works fast approaching delays will be quite extensive. What are they planning as an alternate? Emirates seem to use OMAL for the 380. Is it the same?
Ex a380 driver
Does QF give an Alternate for Dubai for fuel planning for even if CAVOK forecast?
Direct anywhere
The QF fuel policy doesn't carry an alternate for anywhere else under those conditions so I would consider it highly unlikely there is a different policy for Dubai ops. Having said that, they should have enough fuel on arrival for OMAL and OMAA at least but that tends to be a quirk of the policy rather than deliberate planning.
ex a380 driver
Good luck then with the 40 minutes plus holding that regularly occurs here.
SOPS
Just thinking the same thing Ex A380, we held for nearly an hour last night! ( or this morning, depending on how you look at it:)
etc.
These posts were from the day before the diversion.
Sorry if you think my post ill-informed, schlong hauler. Seemed pretty pertinent to me.

[Transition Layer]

The fact of the matter is that QF Fuel Policy doesn't consider ATC holding fuel and WX holding fuel in isolation. It simply considers them as one and the same.

For example, say you are arriving at the destination with NOTAMed 30 mins ATC holding plus 60 mins for forecast Tempo TS, the plan will only give you the 60 mins, not 90 mins. Ridiculous I know and definitely not the fuel I'd be taking. No use arriving at a CAVOK destination and sitting in the hold for X mins due ATC traffic delays, whilst in the mean time a TS plonks itself over the airfield.

Does Dubai nominate any predicted ATC delays and associated required holding fuel at the pre-flight stage?

[haughtney1]

OMDB-A0240/13
From: 04/04/2013 00:01 UTC
To: PERM
Period: H24
STAR FUEL PLANNING
SUBJECT TO APPLICABLE REGULATIONS AND THEIR AIR OPR
CERTIFICATE, OPR MAY PLAN THE APPROPRIATE ABBREVIATED STAR AS SHOWN

IN OMDB AD 2-43B AND OMDB AD 2-44B.
DRG PEAK ARR PERIODS IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT OPR PLAN THE APPROPRIATE

FULL STAR AS SHOWN IN OMDB AD 2-43A AND OMDB AD 2-44A.
PEAK ARR PERIODS ARE:
0100-0300
0800-1000
1500-2200
THE FULL STARS ARE ALSO RECOMMENDED TO BE PLANNED DRG ANY PERIODS OF

POSS DLY.
EXAMPLES: FCST SIG WX, RWY CLOSURES, EQPT TESTING.
PROVISION SHALL BE MADE FOR LDG IN EITHER RWY DIRECTION.

Delays..what delays? Nothing to see here there are no delays..merely poor ATM from other service providers outside the region......but FWIW, the plans I see in those peak times normally have 30 minutes of gas (above statistical contingency) on a nice wx day, or up to 90 minutes on a bad wx day.

[Transition Layer]

Haughtney/exA380,

Thanks for the input, solved my curiosity! Perhaps the "synergies" from the EK/QF tie up didn't extend to Flight Dispatch!

:ok:

[Plazbot]

appears I can see the future or more accurately the ever recurring past. Why OBBI? Would have thought OMMS more likely as they are on that side at BUBIN.

[ferris]

Can Muscat handle the A380? Maybe they were already full?

[waren9]

Passengers buy tickets, not chances.

thats fkn golden tb. love it.

will remember that for the next mgmnt min fuel clown i fly with.

[unseen]

Twin beech - if you are at MTOW with all regulatory requirements for extra fuel covered, but not enough for your worst case scenario, do you offload pax or cargo to carry your extra fuel?

What probability of something happening makes you want to carry fuel for it?

Always interested to hear others opinions on these questions.

[neville_nobody]

Passengers buy tickets, not chances. It behooves pilots to try and act in a way that reflects that...you know, actually getting them to their destination or hub as advertised

Well CASA could help us all out by legislating alternates for RPT aircraft......like the rest of the fricking world................

Very few, if any, international airlines would roll up at Australian airports without an alternate. Yet for some reason Australian carriers are legally allowed to plan to land with bingo.

So until we change the law no management is going to allow you more fuel in their ops manual. And so the ongoing stoush about how much fuel you carry will continue. The minimum for RPT should be an alternate with reserve if we want to get serious.

[fltdispatch]

Ex SYD planned at MTOW with max pax load. Full alternate and 35min App fuel (read holding). Not sure what you want off loaded to carry more. It already was planned over 20000KGS over the top. Weather went below at all close alternates Muscat refused to accept the aircraft. Crew did amazing and got the pax SAFELY where they were going. There are NO cowboys here!!!

[Twin Beech]

Unseen..apologies for my previous outburst...your q deserved a more intelligent reply. Following is my stab at it:

At flit planning we have a set piece of information: its like performance art in that we all know our lines and what is expected of us. What is not perfectly understood is the range of possibilities at the destination. This of course includes wx, rwy configuration due to unforeseen events while we are enroute, aid serviceability, and random events on aircraft operated by our near-term contemporaries. Add to that the usual smorgasbord of potential unfortunate circumstances from political and geological events and passenger vicissitudes and you end up with a cocktail of unknowns.

How you best manage that is largely informed by your personal biases and experience. As such it is of course subject to constant revision. My personal, and by no means perfect, bias, is to only winnow the fuel down to some level that reflects the risk model to the degree that my imperfect factoid collection and...superstition...allow. I have never yet allowed any commercial factors to influence my thinking...to do so is to call into question your essential decision making ability.

I do not work for anybody in management: i work for the punters down the back.

Here's a simple test: you are flying the last plane home after your carrier declares bankruptcy. To which metrics do you measure your prudence? Why? What has changed? If your answer is simple economics, then you may need to revisit your default position viz fuel.

I once had an interesting philosophical discussion* with K. Ireland about all of this. He volunteered that QF's fuel policies amounted to an annual savings of....exactly our profit. So then: QF exists by virtue of taking less fuel than all of our competition. Is that correctt? And by that, I mean to ask: is that right?

* I had a taser and a hockey mask: It was more pro forma than interesting.

[haughtney1]

Weather went below at all close alternates Muscat refused to accept the aircraft. Crew did amazing and got the pax SAFELY where they were going.

All pretty standard stuff over this way when the weather goes south so to speak...OMRK, OMAL, OMAA and OOMS all fill up pretty quickly and it often becomes a bit like a game of musical chairs, and you don't want to be left swinging when the music stops.
Still there are plenty of strips of Tarmac in the general vicinity including OMDW and a secret airbase....that I can see from my back balcony..almost:E

[Kiwikid]

Over 40 other aircraft bound DXB diverted that night. Where are all the threads about them?

Until recently DWC has only been available to pax flights declaring an emergency. This is slowly changing with a limited number of EK flights allowed to use it now and full pax ops starting in Oct apparently.

[Ollie Onion]

Shock horror, weather deteriorates and aircraft has to divert!! :eek: Someone should do something about this!

[Twin Beech]

Its called the Khamsin. Like Melbourne's Brickfelder, the Scirocco, Kiwatin, Santa Ana...all of these phenomena are well documented* and predictable.

*But likely not in your (or mine) airline's manuals.

[Capt Fathom]

What would you have done under those circumstances Twin Beech?

[Qanchor]

Anyone know what happened re connecting flights?

[CaptCloudbuster]

TB saidIf, however, you are referring to those circumstances when an official or personal probability exists regarding an alternate, then I have always, repeat always, kicked off payload to take that fuel. Invariably it's cargo that gets kicked.

No wonder LH is dragging us down with attitudes like yours! Kicking of freight on your own volition due to a personal probability of alternate?

To borrow a quote from Sal Kerrigan in The Castle

Get your hand off it Darrel!

For those readers not familiar with QF fuel policy, a more balanced approach would be to consult with the IOC to express personal reservations regarding the successful outcome of the planned flight. Suggest options possibly including offloading of freight if gut instinct was strong enough. Allow them to do their job and make a judgement call in the best interests of the QF business .

This might be to take all the planned payload, fly to a decision point, assess the options, then perform the Command role by deciding whether to proceed or divert.

[Derfred]

Oh, so it's not the Command Role to determine the fuel order prior to departure?

[rockarpee]

The QF fuel policy is a "Get it airborne" policy. Once that has been done tis up to the crew to work out what to do next.:eek:

[D.Lamination]

And for the QF historians amongst you:

The last QF flight into BAH before this was.......................



:{

[DirectAnywhere]

I think there was one a few years ago. Management threw a conniption fit, had kittens and promptly made it very clear that BAH was no longer the preferred diversion port in the Middle East. :E

[blueloo]

A few of QFs 'new' 767RRs went to Bahrain - scheduled - on their flts from London to Syd.

[court_k]

According to the ground staff who opened the M2L door in BAH, last QF aircraft there was 1986.

[Jed Clampett]

This is not correct. I operated the last scheduled service out of Bahrain as the QF 5 on 05/08/90 on VH-EBV. The service was cancelled early due to the first Gulf war.

[court_k]

Ground staff were incorrect then Jed! Regardless, they were very very excited to see us in the middle of the night!

[Bullethead]

I did a medical diversion into BAH on what became the last sector of my FO check in B747-400 VH-OJI on the 15 Apr 1996, 17 years and some days ago. I passed the check too. :ok:

[Buckshot]

Just what you need on a check, Bullet! Good job :ok:

[Keg]

I recall being planned via BAH to LHR one night due to excessive headwind and requiring reduced seating ex SIN. No one told refueler to hold at new fuel load for BAH and so we ended up leaving people behind and going direct.