757's having fuel issues on westbound flights

Irish Steve

CBS news is reporting that the recent weather conditions are causing problems for airlines operating 757's on Transatlantic flights.

The Jet stream is at present very strong, and directly on the flight routes from Europe, and causing flights to take longer to get across the Atlantic on westbound flights, to the extent that over 60 flights in recent weeks have been forced to land at alternate airports to take on additional fuel in order to get to to their planned destination.

BuffyBot

Don't think DUB and SNN suffer too much from this but Continental runs 757s from Berlin etc which occasionally encounter this issue even at the best of times and have to top up.

drdeadlift

Im surer the folks at flight dispatch are well aware.

owenc

Well the british isles flights one be affected but i think its kind of stupid putting a 757 on a route to franfurt and berlin. Isn't that a bit far? I mean its about 3,000 miles from ewr to the west coast surely berlin would be nearly 4,000 miles. 4,000 on a 757 is far too far!

EDIT: YES 4,000 miles! Who could be bothered sitting in a 757 on a 9 or 10 hour flight!

Tenger

owenc wrote: »

Well the british isles flights one be affected but i think its kind of stupid putting a 757 on a route to franfurt and berlin. Isn't that a bit far? I mean its about 3,000 miles from ewr to the west coast surely berlin would be nearly 4,000 miles. 4,000 on a 757 is far too far!

I'm sure the airlines are quite aware of the range of an B752 and have figured out whether it is feasible or not.

B752 range: 3900 NM/ 7222 KM (according to wikipedia)

owenc

Tenger wrote: »

I'm sure the airlines are quite aware of the range of an B752 and have figured out whether it is feasible or not.

B752 range: 3900 NM/ 7222 KM (according to wikipedia)

I was just saying. :mad:

Tenger

owenc wrote: »

I was just saying. :mad:

In the past you had a rant about how your airport doesn't get much longhaul love.

It is a fact that many airports would not have any longhaul flying where it not for the existence of the B757. This aircraft has the capability to make longhaul flights to smaller airports ('thinner routes' in market parlance)

So quite a few flights had to divert in the last 7-10 days. (Lets call it <5% of the yearly flights) Not a bad price to pay for having longhaul services year round rather than having to transit at a hub elsewhere.

.....but i think its kind of stupid putting a 757 on a route to franfurt and berlin. Isn't that a bit far? ........ surely berlin would be nearly 4,000 miles. 4,000 on a 757 is far too far!
You give the impression that the airlines are crazy for doing this

klypso

When AA switched to the 757 in winter 2009/2010 on DUB-ORD (3673 miles) they regularly had a fuel stops in Bangor in the event of strong headwinds or bad weather in the US.

AA55 MAN-ORD (3826 miles) is a regular visitor to Bangor over the last few weeks

APM

I took this pic last week going east/west from Poland to Dublin....our flight time out was 2hrs, back was 3hrs 10. If this flight was transatlantic in a 757, we definately would've needed a fuel stop. Those were serious headwinds. 160kts, almost on the nose

APM

for completeness, this was the way out



We landed almost 40mins early at destination because of this. But for both flights it was moderate turbulance at all levels.

Irish Steve

160 Kts, not a lot of fun, especially with turbulence at all levels to add in to the mix.

Brings back memories of a time when I found I had 50 Kts on the nose at 2500 Ft, the winds were a lot stronger than forecast, and had picked up more than some, I was routing Brussels - Exeter, and over Dover, the DME was giving me a groundspeed of 105, on an IAS of 155, (light twin) which made for some interesting decisions, as it wasn't going to be possible to get to the destination before Customs finished for the day, ended up diverting into Southampton, and even that was a long time, losing a third of the groundspeed makes for a big flight time change!

Fortunately, fuel wasn't an issue, but it was thought provoking at the time, I wasn't flying at levels that were normally seriously affected by strong winds and didn't normally have to make much allowance as such, so this degree of change to groundspeed got my attention more than a little.

As has been commented, the 757 is an ideal aircraft for "skinny" routes, although I remember a trip on a charter 757 a good few years ago from Birmingham to Orlando with a tech stop at Bangor for fuel, immigration and customs, and it wasn't fun, there was less space on that 757 than on the Shorts 360 we'd flown from Dublin to Birmingham, and a LOT longer flight.

Hopefully, the jet stream will move off the NA tracks before too long, and things will get back to normal again, and who knows, we might even see some different weather here in Ireland, which might make some people on the weather board very happy;);).