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Westjet Weather Limits


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Stuck in YYG Sunday night as the inbound flight from Toronto diverted to Stephenville for fuel. The WS plan was to attempt to land but apparently according to the ground agent on the departure lounge PA, "the Captain decided not to land and would be returning to YYZ". Weather was overcast (600') with good visibility with some wind but nothing extreme. AC was landing/departing on runway 03. Also YYG has an ILS on rwy 03 plus RNAV approaches to all runways. What are WS weather and crosswind limits? 

Contacted the WS call center this morning (Monday) to ask if the re-scheduled rescue flight was going to make it in because the weather is worse. The WS agent told me all I could do was "hope".

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Was it raining?  How heavily? Standing water on the runway?  Although I have no idea what their limits are I have seen a few times where the limiting factor appeared to be related to standing water - the Embraer, and other aircraft, could land but the 37 diverted.

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Have just checked in for the re-scheduled flight and asked to speak to the station mgr. Nice person who took a moment to answer some questions. She was advised by WS OCC that the Captain on yesterday s flight said he saw "fog over Summerside ". I suggested that was not a valid reason since that is 60 miles away from YYG and as station mgr she deserves to know exactly why the flight did not land. So she left us to call OCC and get more details. OCC advised her it was a fully loaded -800 and the captain was concerned about a wet runway and landing distances. Was only very light rain and AC was operating without issue. Those flights could have easily provided a pirep on the runway conditions.

Not impressed. 

 

 

 

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10 minutes ago, blues deville said:

OCC advised her it was a fully loaded -800 and the captain was concerned about a wet runway and landing distances. Was only very light rain and AC was operating without issue. Those flights could have easily provided a pirep on the runway conditions.

Not impressed. 

I'm not the best guy to answer since I've never flown a 37 - maybe a Westjetter will respond but in the meanwhile I've heard, anecdotally, that some overruns (other airlines) with the 37 on contaminated runways resulted in the some changes to make the landing numbers much more restrictive.

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1 hour ago, seeker said:

I'm not the best guy to answer since I've never flown a 37 - maybe a Westjetter will respond but in the meanwhile I've heard, anecdotally, that some overruns (other airlines) with the 37 on contaminated runways resulted in the some changes to make the landing numbers much more restrictive.

I see from the following that the 737-700 and 800 have a considerable longer runway requirement on a wet runway than some other aircraft types at least as published in the following document 

http://www.airportsites.net/masterplans/pvd/Final mp exhibits/CHIII/EX_III-1-9_Rwy-Length.pdf

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4 minutes ago, thor said:

what's that saying... A superior pilot uses his superior judgement to stay out of situations that may require his superior skill.

Appears the verdict is: wrong if he diverts  and wrong if he doesn't (and something goes wrong).....  Some days I guess a PIC can not win. :D

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4 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

Appears the verdict is: wrong if he diverts  and wrong if he doesn't (and something goes wrong).....  Some days I guess a PIC can not win. :D

But he did win.  He diverted.  In two days no one will remember the cancellation and delay but if he'd gone off the end nobody would forget it so easily.

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Thor, Superior dispatch doesn't send an airplane to an airport where it has been raining most of the day with an airplane too heavy to land thereby placing the Pilot in a position of using his Superior judgement to overrule unachievable goals set on his behalf.

But I hear you.  I ran the numbers for the 321 MLW, using the worst of last nights Metars when ceiling was 600 feet between 19-23z.  Wind 110/24,12 degrees, A29.47, wet. The runway is not grooved and is assumed wet.  I don't have the calculations for the 737-800 but understand they are considerably worse than the 321.  The 321 is roughly 6200 feet out of 7000.  It's all assuming the runway was wet, but no appreciable standing water.  If it was contaminated with standing water to .13 inch or LESS, then there are no choices for the Airbus either.

The Captain made the right choice, he just shouldn't have had to.

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21 minutes ago, acsidestick said:

Thor, Superior dispatch doesn't send an airplane to an airport where it has been raining most of the day with an airplane too heavy to land thereby placing the Pilot in a position of using his Superior judgement to overrule unachievable goals set on his behalf.

 

I've been dispatched multiple times to airports (usually it's YYT) with virtually no likelihood of being able to land by our dispatch so this is not specific to Westjet by any means.  I'm sure you have seen this too so you can't be disparauging them, right?

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Not at all, if the likely hood of not getting in was known before leaving, but passengers were informed of the likelihood of not getting in, or unforcasted weather occurred, then dispatch is golden.  If however the plane left, not realizing the landing weight wasn't going to work for the current and forecasted conditions, and the decision arrived as a surprise, then someone dropped the ball.

 

The Captain caught it, once again, good decision..

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Thanks for all the input and comments. Seems like Westjetters are not taking part in this forum lately.

Standing water from what I could see, was not an issue. I wouldn't have even called the surface wet. Perhaps damp. At YYG you have a front row view only a few feet from the ramp. The wind which perhaps might have been a factor was keeping the surface dry with only intermittent light showers. The forecast wind was much worse than actual wind too.

Safety first? Always. But to me this was not an well informed decision. 

As ACsidestick mentioned, the departing crew before leaving YYZ should have been completely aware of the forecast weather. Not sure why you'd dispatch an airplane to do 6 hours of flying and not get any confirmed passengers to their desired destinations. 

Anyways, I won't be forgetting about it in two days. Had time on the flight to draft a letter to Westjet (2nd WS flight in recent years, second letter) and will certainly follow up on what took place. 

Arrival PA from flight deck. Counted 12 "uhs". Total PA "ahs" = 29. And I know I missed a few. Gets a little hard to listen to especially when you're PO'd. 

 

 

 

 

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23 minutes ago, blues deville said:

Anyways, I won't be forgetting about it in two days. Had time on the flight to draft a letter to Westjet (2nd WS flight in recent years, second letter) and will certainly follow up on what took place. 

So......the next time you're logged in to Expedia to book a flight...........?

 

Going to pick the cheapest?

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Your frustration is certainly appreciated Blues, but are you suggesting that WJ's failure to complete the inbound flight was intentional, or due to some other specific form of incompetence?  

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6 hours ago, blues deville said:

 

Arrival PA from flight deck. Counted 12 "uhs". Total PA "ahs" = 29. And I know I missed a few. Gets a little hard to listen to especially when you're PO'd. 

 

 

 

 

You sure it wasn't Justin T at the helm LOL!!

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14 hours ago, seeker said:

Was it raining?  How heavily? Standing water on the runway?  Although I have no idea what their limits are I have seen a few times where the limiting factor appeared to be related to standing water - the Embraer, and other aircraft, could land but the 37 diverted.

The last four words brought back a memory. . . . .I can remember back in the day when Pee-Dub had just completed the transition from turbo-props to jets and flew '37's like fast Convairs. Man, if PW could not get in then nobody else would even try. (Well, except for a certain BC Tel crew or two.)

Of course back then 737 pilots all had thousands of hours of float time and lake time and mountain time. They knew the land the lakes and the airports. They knew the limits of their abilities and knew the airplane limits. They flew - actually hand flew - the aircraft more in one paring than current pilots fly all year. But they had to as there was no GPS, no FMS, not great auto pilot systems, and the weather was given by station staff.

Okay, reminiscing is over, back to the thread. . . . .

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15 hours ago, DEFCON said:

Your frustration is certainly appreciated Blues, but are you suggesting that WJ's failure to complete the inbound flight was intentional, or due to some other specific form of incompetence?  

Not at all DEFCON. If you're going to announce a reason for a delay or cancelled flight, don't BS a room full of passengers. Especially PE islanders. These people have seen their share of crappy weather while flying. And after 40 years and 25,000+hrs, don't try to BS me either. Still don't know what WS uses for x-wind limits but it must be very restrictive on the -800's. 

And I think better communication between all parties might have made for a better outcome. Someone at WS needs to answer for dispatching a flight to a destination 90 minutes away where there was a good chance an approach might not be completed safely. 

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The captain wasn't comfortable with the landing. Perhaps it was within limits but he/she is new or discovered that he was fatigued, had an anti-skid issue or a multitude of other reasons that came up on the flight such as his digestive system not being too good that night.

If you don't like, it, go somewhere else. I wasn't on the flight but I and the rest of the pilots in the industry don't need to be pressure by some pushy pax who think they know more than the flight crew.

Most of us have been dispatched when weather conditions were marginal. If they hadn't even taken off, you would probably be complaining that they didn't bother to go take a look. We can't win with people like you and owe you no explanation other than the fact that we as pilots will not let the likes of you browbeat us into doing something we are not comfortable with. The captain is the captain and has decided not to land at YYG.

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9 minutes ago, flyinghigh said:

The captain wasn't comfortable with the landing. Perhaps it was within limits but he/she is new or discovered that he was fatigued, had an anti-skid issue or a multitude of other reasons that came up on the flight such as his digestive system not being too good that night.

If you don't like, it, go somewhere else. I wasn't on the flight but I and the rest of the pilots in the industry don't need to be pressure by some pushy pax who think they know more than the flight crew.

Most of us have been dispatched when weather conditions were marginal. If they hadn't even taken off, you would probably be complaining that they didn't bother to go take a look. We can't win with people like you and owe you no explanation other than the fact that we as pilots will not let the likes of you browbeat us into doing something we are not comfortable with. The captain is the captain and has decided not to land at YYG.

Obviously you haven't had the WJ social media training session.

Yikes.

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7 hours ago, AIP said:

Obviously you haven't had the WJ social media training session.

Yikes.

Maybe just mistaken with the not-westjetty-enough-co-worker harassment training offered by Greg Saretsky in a recent speech...

 

ie. "Like it or force them out"

 

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Possibly an MEL restriction of some type, or a crew issue ('green' Capt. with some limitation?).

It is hard to watch other airlines come and go while you're told 'we can't do it'.  I've seen it before when a certain operator from YTZ went in and out of YSB for 3 days while the weather was below limits.  We followed the rules and looked like the amateurs to the pax, while the other guys looked like heros.

Not at all saying this is the same type of scenario (limit exceedence or violating), just that there may be, and likely is, more to it.  Unfortunately it appears the revenue wasn't adequately informed of the why (especially those who fly for a living).

SIDENOTE: why is the -800 such a poor landing performer versus other machines- is there a particular design shortcoming?

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Many (most) airlines are bad with communicating the issues to the passengers in the even of IROPS.  Most times is seems like they think they are dealing with idiots.  I have no idea why they don't say it like it is.

If it's a mechanical issue then say it's a mechanical issue.

If it's Weathe, call it weather.

if it's a dead goat on the runway then call it a dead goat on the runway.

Stop treating passengers like idiots.

Sunwing has had a bad reputation for not conveying information to the passengers in the event of a delay.  Leaving passengers wondering WTF is going on.

This can have dire consequences if someone has a medical condition and needs meds that are in a checked bag out of reach when a delay extends beyond what would normally be expected. (this has happened)

Just tell it like it is.

 

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