Storm Debi : Mon 13th Nov 2023 - CHAT / QUESTIONS THREAD

It’s entirely up to individual pilots as to airline policy and aircraft type. There are very rigid & quite complicated weather parameters pertaining to each flight. It’s a serious area of study for pilots, meteorology forms part of the training and examinations. Runway direction is a big factor too, sometimes in Dublin you will see aircraft on Flightradar using the old “crosswind runway” when ATC makes it available during certain conditions.

Obviously a lot of smaller aircraft types have wind vector restrictions, like Aer Lingus Regional/Emerald which uses the ATRs which have a specific control (or lack thereof) issue during the landing roll between the speed where rudder authority is lost and nosewheel steering is not effective. It’s a brief hiatus that makes it hazardous particularly in narrower runways like Donegal. In fact this was only actually proven in recent years during an AAIU investigation into an incident when an ATR went off the runway, it was demonstrated by investigators that the aircraft has a no-control period such that newer crosswind restrictions have been applied to its operations.

Pilots check METARS through ATIS, and performance calculations are make on the FMS, and a last minute update to conditions on the runway are provided upon clearance to land by ATC

But decision to land is always the responsibility of the Captain, and s/he may make a different decision than the captain of the aircraft right in front or directly behind, given same conditions, and s/he may commit to land where another has aborted and diverting, or else decide to abort/divert. Aircraft loading, fuel endurance, smaller technical glitches, combined experience of crew in prevailing conditions are all factors that go into the decision making, so when pax complain “the first Ryanair landed without a problem”, they would not be understanding certain factors.