Ryanair over Fuelling question

[Murty]

Today RYR45GD(FR2315) LZIB (Bratislava-EGSS) informed London ATC ,that it had been over fueled,and required to fly around for over 60mins,having flown at FL220 for the majority of the flight.
Would this have been a crew error or could it have been a late airframe change that may have been due to fly a longer route?
Whatever the reason this is one flight that I hope did NOT get the On time trumpet on landing.

Flight track below
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/fr2315#bd55582

[DaveReidUK]

Poor Ryanair, they can't win.

Damned for carrying too little fuel, damned for carrying too much. :ugh:

[Starbear]

Odd one this as it suggests they may have departed with a load sheet showing above max landing weight, how would that work? Manual load sheet? Unless this was a diversion to a much closer airport than planned destination?

Defuelling can be nigh on impossible sometimes and finding alternative options very challenging.

[ATC Watcher]

Faulty meter on a truck ? Rushed departure , only found out at Vr when it would not climb as expected ? Seen this in the air Force, but it was in the 70's.

[Uplinker]

I have dialled up the wrong figure on the fuelling panel before now, e.g. 12500 instead of 13500, by mistake, through mis-remembering the figure. (Error spotted and correct fuel loaded before push-back, I hasten to add).

Equally, one might load too much fuel by mistake, leading to being overweight at destination. When recording the uplift and literage in the tech log, the error would have been spotted, but by then too much fuel would already be on board.

Another reason could have been an aircraft swap. Plane was originally fuelled for a long flight but then some tech issue arose, meaning it could not fly the long sector and was swapped to a shorter sector, but only after the fuel had been loaded. So it would arrive overweight for landing, and they would fly the sector at lower levels to try to burn off the excess fuel.

Defuelling a plane is a very laborious and tedious process, since you are not allowed to unload the fuel back onto the tanker it came from, because that fuel might now be contaminated.

[Gulf Julliet Papa]

Suggest (not 100% know) that Flight radar holds the answer...

FR2315 BTSSTN EI-DWP departed 3 hours late
Prior to this DWPs last flight was on the 6th
FR2314 STNBTS EI-EVT departed on time and arrived early
FR8303/4 BTS-VDA-BTS then operated by EI-EVT 4 hours late

Suggestion....EI-DWP was meant to operate BTS-VDA-BTS on the 08/12, lots of fuel required for this, and potential tankering as well. So aircraft pre-fueled, or fueled, then for whatever reason (tech/operational/other) aircraft is no longer going to Ovda but going to STN instead. Too much fuel on board (above MLW), agreement between ops/pilots that the best option is FL220 + holding. It's not an elegant solution, but likely to be the solution that causes the least delays, and least costly.

Once again all a guess!

[Skyjob]

GJP I think you may be most correct so far.

The 737 cannot be de-fueled at all stations as the fuel companies do not have the ability to do so. Thus sometimes crews can find themselves in a scenario where an aircraft has fuel on board which was loaded for a previous flight (such a flight being cancelled or flown on a different aircraft for other operational or technical reasons), a flight that can be requiring a lot more to be carried. In such scenario, fly the flight normally, upon arrival at destination enter holding and burn it off, use methods allowed by operator to enhance drag in this scenario. Aim to leave the hold and land at MLW some minutes later. Reason not to fly high drag configuration during flight before entering the hold is that fuel predictions in FMC cannot handle such configurations, thus you may end up burning more than required by doing so.

[JW411]

I've never flown for Ryanair but I have found myself being presented with an aircraft which had already been pre-fuelled for a much longer sector and that is going to mean that the aircraft will be over MLW at the new destination. It was not possible to de-fuel the aircraft nor was the aircraft fitted with a fuel dump facility.

So, the only solution was to get airborne and burn off fuel as quickly as possible (for example, keeping the airframe de-ice on for the entire flight and holding with the gear down at the other end) to get down to MLW.

It's a terrible waste of fuel but the operations department have probably worked out that it is the cheapest option available.

[Tu.114]

Things like that just happen. I once had a DH8C with only small payload planned for a flight to a field where fuel was extraordinarily expensive. So we planned to tanker fuel for both legs, leaving several 100kg margin to the limiting MLW. Along came an unexpected travelling party of 20 people or so. Landing weight was still looking good on paper, but we had to burn off no less than the planned fuel to get below this limit. Knowing that our flight planning system at that time erred generously on the conservative side, we were unable to accept any of the normally substantial directs offered on the route and even had to drop the gear and flaps 30 miles out in order to get rid of the unwanted fuel (the DH8 FMS does the fuel prediction based on current fuel flow and speed; while this has its problems as well, in this situation it was helpful). And for the way back, we had to take some of the expensive fuel.

Was this economic? Fuel wise, definitely not. But most probably it was still a better option than leaving paying passengers behind.

[Del Prado]

Ryanair choosing a low cruising level and 60 minutes of holding could lead to the ANSP being fined.
Okay it's just one flight but they all count, this a lot more than the others.

Reporting of environmental performance - 3Di (http://www.nats.aero/environment/3di/)

[DaveReidUK]

Ryanair choosing a low cruising level and 60 minutes of holding could lead to the ANSP being fined.

Just don't tell the Daily Mail. :O