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HappyPass
15th Sep 2013, 14:40
Hi,
a friend of mine went to Florence from Madrid today, VY1503 operated by Vueling, airframe was an A319 (EC-LRZ).
Apparently when he got in Florence they told him that all of the baggage (he said that nothing at all was put on the conveyor belt) was left in Madrid Barajas because of weight problems: the plane was full and bad weather was expected in Florence.
Since he knows that I'm an aviation enthusiast he e-mailed me asking me if this was plausible (he argued that the trip was short, so there was no need to load much fuel).
I was at a loss, because answering him would have meant knowing the inner workings of being a pilot, of that particular plane and having a load sheet of that particular model/pax config in order to make the required calculations.

Anybody knows anything about that particular flight or in general about Vueling or other companies' company procedures?

Thx in advance, best regards.

P.S.: I reckon Bolognia is a safe alternate for LIRQ because of the mountains between those two cities (i.e.: weather is usually different), and it's not that far away re. diversion fuel...?

Cough
15th Sep 2013, 15:30
Nothing to do with taking off with the weight. All to do with landing with it...

Florence has a short runway - landing distance 05 is 1450m. Landing with excess weight when there could be up to a ten knot tailwind today means their max landing weight would probably be below the maximum due to performance reasons. This along with low cloud means the crew would probably want extra fuel This ensures that sufficient is available for a diversion probably to more than just BLQ. Thunderstorms mean you don't want all your eggs in one basket...

Landing in the other direction (23) is probably not possible in a 319 - No instrument approaches available and a landing distance available of only 977m.

Good decision Veuling!

HappyPass
15th Sep 2013, 15:32
Crystal clear, thank you!
I'll tell my friend, he seemed rather upset... :p
Best regards.