Ryanair "fuel rationing" story

Deacon Blues

Listened to the ATC stream of the Ryanair tailstrke incident.

Thought it was interesting that the only pilots who told ATC that 15 minutes in the hold would cause them fuel problems were Aer Lingus and (I think) Aer Arran.

15 minutes !!!!!!!

Meanwhile the Ryanairs were sitting in the hold with no problem.

highlydebased

The Aer Lingus' etc may have been holding elsewhere previously.....

FlutterinBantam

Or they may have been telling a little porky:rolleyes:

highlydebased

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

Or they may have been telling a little porky:rolleyes:

Or that. lol.

Deacon Blues

Neon-Circles wrote: »

The Aer Lingus' etc may have been holding elsewhere previously.....

Yes they could. They also could have been dumping fuel all the way across the Irish Sea, but that's an equally silly explanation. Not saying they weren't holding elsewhere, because I don't know, but you don't really believe that do you ??

The other explanation, that they were telling porkies, is actually more likely, because I've heard that from other sources independently, but it does seem rather disingenuious to imply that you may be nearing a critical fuel situation in order to "jump the queue", and keep your on-time stats. It's also very short sighted, since if the media were to be alerted to the fact that it's not Ryanair, but Aer Lingus who appear to be carrying minimum fuel, leading to problems when they have to hold, their focus may change.

derry

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

Or they may have been telling a little porky:rolleyes:

I dont think when your flying a jet which eats tons per hour of fuel its a good idea to tell porkies

Every time ATC gets notification of low fuel alerts that is logged and might even go into flight incident reports

If a pilot says there is a fuel issue then there probably is likely to be a fuel issue and some sort of one up manship why did you jump the queue stuff

In new york a south amercan 707 crashed when stacked up it ran out of fuel

After that rules for clearance to land from fuel emergencies were ramped up and request for landing from short fuel is a reportable flight incident and pilots prefer to avoid that kinda thing


Derry

Deacon Blues

They didn't actually declare a fuel emergency. What they said was, that 15 minutes in the hold would cause them fuel problems, and could ATC look at vectoring them for an approach to runway 16. Once one said it, others chimed in with "we'll have problems too, can you give us vectors" type requests. The Ryanairs sat in the stack quietly, (except for one idiot who kept asking an ATCO, who was under great pressure dealing with an abnormal situation, and handling it well, "what is the nature of the emergency". I can understand his concern for another aircraft, particularly a company aircraft, but the airwaves were crowded, and he was wasting bandwidth asking her questions she didn't have the answer to.)

My point with this was that the media are bashing Ryanair for (to paraphrase) "cutting corners on safety by not carrying enough fuel", but when something happens where there's a slight delay, Ryanair aircraft appear unaffected, but other airlines start saying that they'll have fuel problems after 15 minutes. It's just very ironic, and goes to prove that you can't believe all you read.

FlutterinBantam

Exactly

Foggy43

I am just thinking back a few years to an occasion when George Bush was to leave Ireland (SNN). As a security measure no flights would be allowed in within a certain time before Air Force 1's departure but there could be exceptions.
I listened in on 124.7, 121.4 and 118.7.

For some strange reason all aircraft arriving in SNN around that time did not have enough fuel to hold. A coincidence, I am sure.

irishatco

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

Or they may have been telling a little porky:rolleyes:

Maybe, but achieves nothing. Unless an emergency is declared, they aren't skipping the queue, so as a general rule the answer will be "you're EAT is xx:xx, advise your alternate"