Norwegian Air Discussion

sailing

Irish Steve wrote: »

Reason it's not showing up with a Norwegian search is that for some reason, it's not using IBK, someone has put it in the system as IKB1821.

And yes, a planned tech stop is not a diversion, whatever they may have on the board at PVD. Not altogether surprised, given the extra passengers at both Belfast and Cork from yesterday's Shannon cancellation.

That's depends on whether it was flight planned to Providence or Gander. All the same it sounds like a bit of a disastrous start.

Irishweather

kub wrote: »

Why at the arrival airport would it say it is diverted?
Surely a fuel stop is that significant, also I cannot find that flight on FR24 so I assume it is still on the ground in Gander and I know it is Gander.

It just took off again, so yes a fuel stop, so why is saying diverted on arrivals in Providence on FR24 when it actually is not.

I assume this is to do with the runway at Cork? The Belfast and Dublin landed.

Irish Steve

JCX BXC wrote: »

174 passengers on the Cork flight today.

I regularly hear of flights diverting to Shannon/Reykjavik/St.Johns/Gander for fuel in the winter. Is this bad terminology? Can anyone point me to an official definition for a diversion in aviation?

The fuel situation is one of those wonderful grey areas in some flights. At one time, for legal reasons, a route from the UK to Orlando was actually planned as UK to Bangor(maine), with an alternate of Orlando, and the crew made the decision en route as to which they would land at depending on how the trip was going with the headwinds.

Today's flight they knew before they departed from Cork that they'd be stopping in Gander for fuel, because they couldn't depart with enough to make Providence with the passenger load and runway length constraints, so while FR24 might have shown the flight as ORK-PVD, the flight plan would have shown ORK-YQV-PVD.

In the winter months, there are regular diversions for fuel to the places mentioned where they are marginal for the original destination, depending on the winds, some days it works, some days it doesn't, so diving in to an en route for a quick "splash and dash" is technically a diversion, as they were not flight planned to go there, whereas if the flight plan was followed, even with a tech stop for fuel, it doesn't get classified as a diversion.

sailing

Irish Steve wrote: »

The fuel situation is one of those wonderful grey areas in some flights. At one time, for legal reasons, a route from the UK to Orlando was actually planned as UK to Bangor(maine), with an alternate of Orlando, and the crew made the decision en route as to which they would land at depending on how the trip was going with the headwinds.

Today's flight they knew before they departed from Cork that they'd be stopping in Gander for fuel, because they couldn't depart with enough to make Providence with the passenger load and runway length constraints, so while FR24 might have shown the flight as ORK-PVD, the flight plan would have shown ORK-YQV-PVD.

In the winter months, there are regular diversions for fuel to the places mentioned where they are marginal for the original destination, depending on the winds, some days it works, some days it doesn't, so diving in to an en route for a quick "splash and dash" is technically a diversion, as they were not flight planned to go there, whereas if the flight plan was followed, even with a tech stop for fuel, it doesn't get classified as a diversion.

Surely it would have been far more sensible to do a quick stop in Shannon. By not doing so suggests the aircraft was unable to make its destination with its booked load from a non limiting runway. Today's NAT winds were slight.

Irishweather

Do the cabin crew go back to back? How do they get between the airports?

Irish Steve

sailing wrote: »

Surely it would have been far more sensible to do a quick stop in Shannon. By not doing so suggests the aircraft was unable to make its destination with its booked load from a non limiting runway. Today's NAT winds were slight.

Would not have worked from Shannon, as the MTOW is the limit, with the number of pax on board, they couldn't take full tanks out of Shannon, so they'd still have been tight even with slack winds. Yes, they were even more limited out of Cork, but the 800 doesn't have the range for this trip with more than 162 pax on board. The booked load was upset by yesterday's cancellation of the flight from Shannon, so they (rightly) put more passengers on, and accepted the en route delay to pick up fuel.

The aircraft in use at the moment are not the long term planned aircraft, the Max aircraft that are being delivered have better range capability than the 800's, so it will be less of an issue once they are in service

JCX BXC

Irishweather wrote: »

Do the cabin crew go back to back? How do they get between the airports?

They're based in Providence and Stewart, not in Ireland.

Irishweather

JCX BXC wrote: »

They're based in Providence and Stewart, not in Ireland.

I'm wondering though with the schedule, do they fly back to back or stay in local hotels for a few days?

marno21

IKB1821 on landing at PVD now. Was supposed to land at 18:30, and it's now 19:45. Planned stop or no planned stop, the flight is 1h15m late.

KwackerJack

Any idea if Norwegian will ever get a base in EIDW??

1123heavy

Irishweather wrote: »

I'm wondering though with the schedule, do they fly back to back or stay in local hotels for a few days?

They'll stay one night and crew swap over. They would have maxed out their daily limit.

A discussion on the crew hotel standards and overall quality of things provided during the stay is in itself worth a whole other thread.

zetalambda

sailing wrote: »

Surely it would have been far more sensible to do a quick stop in Shannon. By not doing so suggests the aircraft was unable to make its destination with its booked load from a non limiting runway. Today's NAT winds were slight.

Maybe it's to do with the price of jet fuel. The price per litre of petrol and diesel in Canada is less than half the price you'll pay in Ireland. Fuel stop in Gander rather than Shannon would save the airline several thousands.

JCX BXC

zetalambda wrote: »

Maybe it's to do with the price of jet fuel. The price per litre of petrol and diesel in Canada is less than half the price you'll pay in Ireland. Fuel stop in Gander rather than Shannon could potentially save the airline tens of thousands.

Tens of thousands really? Considering the flight itself may only make 25,000-35,000 in seat revenue I doubt that.

zetalambda

JCX BXC wrote: »

Tens of thousands really? Considering the flight itself may only make 25,000-35,000 in seat revenue I doubt that.

Yeah, i revised my post Don't get your knickers in a knot.

JCX BXC

zetalambda wrote: »

Yeah, i revised my post Don't get your knickers in a knot.

Jaysus I was just saying!

Irish Steve

Price of petrol or diesel is irrelevant, what you need is Jet A or Jet A1, and a quick google search suggests that the price in Shannon is actually lower than in Gander.

Either way, it's academic, and not the issue, as a fuel stop in Shannon would still have been marginal for range to Providence, the limitation is not the runway length, the 737-800 can't fly to maximum range with a full cabin, as that would exceed Maximum Take off Weight, so a stop at Shannon would still not have given them the reserves they legally must have for the distance they would still have to fly. Gander was a better option, given the relative distances involved.

J.pilkington

I see in earlier posts that they had relaxed bag checks, I wonder will they try knock this on the head early if passengers start taking the p!ss, if everyone is over a few kgs then it all adds up in both in terms of lost extra revenue and weight issues like today's

L1011

zetalambda wrote: »

Maybe it's to do with the price of jet fuel. The price per litre of petrol and diesel in Canada is less than half the price you'll pay in Ireland. Fuel stop in Gander rather than Shannon would save the airline several thousands.

Jet fuel is not taxed in the manner that consumer fuel is. No airline does anything like this

billie1b

L1011 wrote: »

Jet fuel is not taxed in the manner that consumer fuel is. No airline does anything like this

Ryanair tanker, they have a whole crew of people who check the prices across Europe for this reason.

L1011

billie1b wrote: »

Ryanair tanker, they have a whole crew of people who check the prices across Europe for this reason.

Tankering is normal. Dropping in somewhere en route as suggested is not - unless you're unable to buy at one end like IranAir often are

There's no spare capacity *to* tanker for three specific flights anyway!

bkehoe

zetalambda wrote: »

Maybe it's to do with the price of jet fuel. The price per litre of petrol and diesel in Canada is less than half the price you'll pay in Ireland. Fuel stop in Gander rather than Shannon would save the airline several thousands.

Not the case, in fact Jet A1 is often slightly more expensive in North America, but if a fuel stop is needed then an airport mid way on the flight planned route to destination makes more sense cost wise. This is because the aircraft burns extra fuel to carry the extra weight of the fuel its carrying. A rule of thumb for the 737 is that for each extra tonne the a/c carries it burns 25kg extra per hour of flight. So if they know they need a fuel stop then they'll only load the fuel required to get to say Gander. Thats ignoring the fact that if the aircraft carries less fuel then its lighter and can therefore cruise at higher flight levels with the benefit of a reduced headwind component while heading into the jet stream as the jet stream tends to be stronger in the low FL300s. A heavy 737 would be limited to FL330/340 at oceanic entry whereas loose a few tonnes of fuel and it can cruise at FL360/370 at the entry. Depending on the winds this could save a substantial amount of trip fuel.

Another possibility is that the aircraft takes full fuel, and from a flight planning perspective, the flight can be dispatched while 'borderline' on fuel for the direct flight but received an unfavourable flight level for the NAT crossing, encountered stronger than normal headwinds, etc, so when 'coasting in' from the oceanic leg the crew then evaluate the actual fuel remaining against that required to continue and elect to perform the tech stop for extra fuel. Most north atlantic operators would perform similar 'in-flight replanning' as the contingency fuel on a long sector can be a huge amount so this legal method exists to reduce the contingency and is built into the flight plans.

billie1b

L1011 wrote: »

Tankering is normal. Dropping in somewhere en route as suggested is not - unless you're unable to buy at one end like IranAir often are

There's no spare capacity *to* tanker for three specific flights anyway!

Sorry, apologies, I read your comment arseways, I understand what you meant now

Gamebred

How long would the fuel stop take in Gander? a quick pitstop or we talking an hour plus? I presume there is a minimum required amount of Fuel in case of emergency that isnt being comprised by these new flights?

bkehoe

Gamebred wrote: »

How long would the fuel stop take in Gander? a quick pitstop or we talking an hour plus? I presume there is a minimum required amount of Fuel in case of emergency that isnt being comprised by these new flights?

This is the reason that the flight might have to pitstop. They might have enough in the tanks to fly to destination but wouldn't be assured of arriving at destination with legal reserves, the amount of which can change day by day (e.g. could easily be 3 tonnes on the NG, 15% of the capacity of the tanks, and in addition to legal reserves crew will often have extra in excess of the reserves. Norwegian, in all their different AOCs comply with EASA regulations just like Aer Lingus, Ryanair, etc, and there is no compromising of safety by the requirement to do a tech stop. In fact Aer Lingus sometimes have to do a tech stop on Lanzarote to Ireland flights due to the runway length and high terrain, so nothing new about this in principle.

A planned tech stop could result in as little as 15 minutes on a parking stand if the airport authorities allow fuelling with passengers on board. The whole descent, approach, taxiing, departure routing, etc, could easily add a significant period of extra time onto the total time of the trip though.

JCX BXC

Gamebred wrote: »

How long would the fuel stop take in Gander? a quick pitstop or we talking an hour plus? I presume there is a minimum required amount of Fuel in case of emergency that isnt being comprised by these new flights?

Took an hour for the cork flight iirc.

Captain_Crash

bkehoe wrote: »

In fact Aer Lingus sometimes have to do a tech stop on Lanzarote to Ireland flights due to the runway length and high terrain

Doubtful any tech's have been due to this. Its an 7800ft runway, nearly as long as DUB and the terrain although high in the area, doesn't cause any performance penalties for a flight of such length.

The A320 has the legs to travel 3500nmi, ACE-DUB is only 1500nmi.

JCX BXC

Captain_Crash wrote: »

Doubtful any tech's have been due to this. Its an 7800ft runway, nearly as long as DUB and the terrain although high in the area, doesn't cause any performance penalties for a flight of such length.

The A320 has the legs to travel 3500nmi, ACE-DUB is only 1500nmi.

I'd agree, as it's only ACE-Ireland/UK/Northern Europe thats affected by the pitstops in Faro, I've never seen TFS/FUE/LPA flights being affected in a similar way.

From what I've heard, performance can be terrible from Lanzarote depending on winds. They can really be unpredictable and vastly changing at the airport. There was an A340 a few weeks ago, coupled with its poor cling rate and turbulence from the hills it had an interesting (and likely bumpy) looking climbout!

Captain_Crash

JCX BXC wrote: »

I'd agree, as it's only ACE-Ireland/UK/Northern Europe thats affected by the pitstops in Faro, I've never seen TFS/FUE/LPA flights being affected in a similar way.

From what I've heard, performance can be terrible from Lanzarote depending on winds. They can really be unpredictable and vastly changing at the airport. There was an A340 a few weeks ago, coupled with its poor cling rate and turbulence from the hills it had an interesting (and likely bumpy) looking climbout!

I don't drive an A320 (or anything with wings for that matter) so I'm happy to be corrected. I simply looked at numbers and made an assumption based on figures I pulled from the internet.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

bkehoe

Captain_Crash wrote: »

I don't drive an A320 (or anything with wings for that matter) so I'm happy to be corrected. I simply looked at numbers and made an assumption based on figures I pulled from the internet.

It's frequently discussed on this forum about the A320 tech stops from ACE, usually in FAO. I can assure you that most aircraft are takeoff weight limited from ACE most days; A320, 737, etc. Theres way more going on with takeoff performance than just runway length. I think I've only been there once when I could take off at MTOW and that was due to a significant headwind component.

Often the older Jet2 737 Classics have the same issue and sometimes request runway 21 for departure even if its not the active runway as they're unable to use 03 with the conditions on the day. They often have to wait a significant time for ATC to accommodate this request but some days the tailwind on 21 is outside limits so then they have to tech stop too.