Easyjet Fuel Diversion 3rd September
 

Just wondered if anyone had more information.

I have a friend staying with me this weekend who advises he was flying EY from Istanbul to Luton on 3rd September. Approx 1/2 hour after takeoff the pilot announced they were diverting to Dortmund because "They did not have enough fuel to safely get to the UK with our current load". After 2 hours on the ground the flight continued safely to Luton, landing 3 hours after scheduled arrival.

Can anyone shed any light on this ? Could Istanbul simply not have had enough fuel, or a miscalculation on take off weight or any other explanation. The passengers were very bemused that on a relatively short flight this diversion was necessaary.

LateFinals

Latefinals,


I know the capt on that flight and I spoke to him a few days after this mentioned flight.
First they had an aircraft change due tech problems before flying to Turkey which ended up in them having a plane with a lower max takeoff weight (64 tonnes) instead of one on that kind of route distance which is normally flown by a 68 tonne aircraft.
For that reason they were restricted on their takeoff weight and had to decide whether to offload passengers or refuel en-route. They obviously chose the last option which I'm sure all the pax would appreciate! Yes they also had a strong headwind too.

Hope that explains you why!?

PS. Didn't know EY (Etihad) flies Istanbul to Luton ;)

I'm not trying to pick holes or find fault, I have a very high respect for easyJet, but isn't this a very long refuelling stop.

Capetonian,

When diverting you need new flightplans which has to be faxed to the airport then on to the aircraft which sometimes can take a long time plus you can also end up getting slots as you no longer arrive at the scheduled time. Lots of reasons really.

Actually, having been in exact same situation myself I can offer the following, Turkey does not have a schengin (spelling maybe?) agreement. It takes about 6weeks plus to get a route approved by Turkey etc. So if you find yourself in Turkey, with an overloaded plane you cannot simply take-off for a nearer airport for a fuel stop, to get that flight plan filed would need that route individually approved(6 weeks plus). So you have a choice, dump the pax and bags and go, or fill up with as much fuel as you can, depart as planned to your flight planned destination and once en-route 'discover' you cannot make it and divert in flight. If you stated to the controller before departure that you intended to divert for fuel he would not let you go. So all in all I think a cheeky way around getting out with all pax and a tech stop without going through the rigmarole of flight planning. Easy to pick up a new flight plan from your tech diversion which is Schengin. Ho Humm. Heavy headwinds don't help either!

Thank you both for the explanation! :)

Thank you very much for the clarification. Seems the Captain took a common sense approach to deal with a problem to try to get all passengers and their baggage back together.

LF

I am not really surprised.
why not take just some reasonable amount of EXTRA fuel instead of the MINIMUM fuel. I heard flying MIN FUEL is almost "compulsary" for EZY crews. And any fuel above MIN has to be reported and seriously stated.
Of course beeing on MIN fuel and any change in flight "to the bad side" like, e.g. more HD-wind, higher payload etc, a tech stop for refuelling is imminent.

You muppet. If the MINIMUM fuel was enough to get the aircraft to LTN, then a tech-stop would not have been required, would it?

As has been explained, the change in airframe meant that the aeroplane could not put on ENOUGH fuel to get all the way to LTN with sufficient reserves.

Carrying Min fuel is encouraged in EZY, as it is in every other UK airline I have ever worked for, but there is absolutely no problem with loading EXTRA fuel if it is forseen to be needed by the crew. Which it is, regularly, and which we do, regularly.

It is not "compulsary" [sic]. yes the reasons have to be stated, as they do in bmi, BA etc etc - we base fuel plans on facts, not 'feeling' and every single crewmember I have flown with in any of those 3 airlines would be happy to stand in front of management and justify their fuel plan decisions without prejudice or fear of recrimination. As it should be.

Tech-stops are not an uncommon thing, particularly on long routes where margins are tight and the long flying time means just a small change in forecast wind or ATC allocated flight level can make the difference between having to stop off for a top-up or not.

Look on the bright side, Gary - at least Airbus_a321 does not claim to be a pilot nor even someone involved in aircraft operation:ok:

He obviously considers himself enough of an expert to share his wisdom with us all. He'll get no mercy from me! :mad:

Airbus, glad to see you read the thread properly and absorbed all the information available to you before jumping in and making a snap decision and frankly making bit of a fool of yourself..............................oh wait!!!

Airbus, Just ask yourself out of the thousand(ish) sectors EZY do a day how many tech stops have you EVER heard about?? Gary has already said we have no problems taking extra when required.

Tell you what, we will keep taking the appropriate fuel and working for a successful and PROFITABLE airline. You keep gassing it up no matter what and wasting fuel. The sooner your airline goes out of business and we can take over your routes the better! I will wave to you in the unemployment line as we fly over, with plog fuel!

(see its not nice when people make uneducated and impolite postings about you is it!!)

@Gary: your posting
does it mean that you state that the EZY crew took-off from Istanbul to their destination Luton with a total fuel, obviously WELL below the MIN fuel required. But this is illegal, isn't it ?

Airbus - let's pretend you want to go to Sydney from London and the aircraft stops in Bangkok to put some fuel on to get it to Sydney, change crews and restock the bar - would that be illegal or standard practice bearing in mind the aircraft won't get you there in one hop???

Think about it . . . the ultimate destination was Luton . .

no...see the post above...things can and do change that affect the fuel burn and eat into safe reserves. They might have departed with a fuel load close to minimums but that doesn't make it unsafe - particularly since they acted sensibly and tech-stopped, rather than pressing on to LTN.

"obviously WELL below MIN fuel" - how did you work that out? If the headwind increases and you find yourself predicted to land only 100kg under min reserves, you still have some re-planning to do; the fact that this was necessary doesn't mean you can extrapolate anything at all about the departure fuel state.

All that about the 'revised' route being illegal because it hadn't been approved is nonsense. It is not setting up a new scheduled service to anywhere new, just planning a one-off unscheduled stop en-route. If such a situation were not allowed, how would bizjets and GA aircraft ever be allowed to operate? You file a flight plan before a flight, it gets approved by ATC, therefore the flight is approved (slight oversimplification I know).

You implied that the crew should have put on more fuel to start with, but didn't because of what your fevered imagination thought was EZY's company culture:

It has been explained that what you 'heard' about EZY's company culture is total nonsense. BTW I am not a manager, just a regular line Joe.
It has been explained that the crew could not put on more fuel than they did, even if they wanted to, because of a/c limitations.
It has been explained that tech-stopping for fuel is not unusual and perfectly legal.

There's nothing wrong with MINIMUM fuel, to use your own hyperbole - by definition it is the adequate minimum required to do the flight safely and legally.

I don't have a problem with the public asking questions on here, on board the aircraft, or anywhere - I enjoy increasing awareness of what we do and how we do it, in all fields of aviation. I am responding aggressively because of your ill-informed, antagonistic way of apparently criticising our operation, obviously without knowing anything about it. :ugh:

Minimum Fuel
 

Actually, there is no real reason to get stressed over this.

What you are discussing really is the definition of the word 'minimum'. Viewed one way, this can sound downright dangerous - no wonder there are some worried and curt responses.

However, surely the definition of minimum is the lowest volume possible WITHOUT ENDANGERING ANYBODY or ANYTHING.

If nothing is endangered, then flying with the lowest weight has to be the most efficient way to fly?

Please correct me, if I am wrong.

Just wondering, does easyjet use decision point flightplans in close cases like this? Could make some flights possible that may be impossible on normally planned flights.

We do have the facility to plan using decision point plans, but it only results in the contigency fuel reqt dropping from 5% of total trip to 3% of total trip (not 5% of trip from DP to dest) - on a 5 hour flight that means a saving of about 200kg - not much difference when you need a 68T MTOW aircraft and you get a 64 tonner. So we can use them, and they might make things possible in a very few cases, but not very often. Ops are quite proactive at suggesting such things in my experience.

Very diplomatic Janie, but I am quite certain that I know what minimum means in the context of professional aviation, and Airbus_a321 obviously doesn't; you can call it a 'discussion' if you like! You are reasonable in your definitions, except we measure fuel by weight, not volume (it expands and contracts a lot with temperature).

All professional aircrew take the minimum fuel they consider necessary for a safe flight, because it gives the minimum aircraft weight and thus the minimum fuel burn. This minimum fuel may be more than the legal/regulatory minimum, but never less!

There are quite possibly some airlines which place unreasonable pressure on their crews to take less fuel than is safe, I have never worked for one or heard of a company acting like that in the UK. I don't know about Ireland...:E

I don't know about Ireland...http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...ilies/evil.gif

Clearly not.

It's nice that your ignorance isn't getting in the way of your prejudice. :yuk:

Actually it isn't nonsense. Once you leave the comfort of the EU you have to get approvals for each flight. Some countries say that filing the flight plan constitutes getting approval, but many (including Turkey) don't. You must get your overflight/landing permit first and place the number in the remarks section of the flight plan. It is for a specific destination - some countries even for a specific routing. Getting this approval can take anywhere from a few minutes to weeks (India, anyone?).
I have often used the procedure of taking off on my original flight plan and then once safely back in civilisation "discovered" that I needed to divert. :ok: