What happens.....EI897

kub

Hi all,
Some relatives were due to come home this morning to Cork on EI897 from Faro.
The plane departed Cork earlier this morning and arrived into Faro. There was a delay before pax were allowed board. Eventually they did, but after a while were taken off the aircraft again.
So now a replacement plane is due out there at 22:00.
I can appreciate that this is a technical problem and EI are doing the best that they can in this situation.
I would have imagined that a spare aircraft and crew could have been found in Dublin, with a few spare parts and a few mechanics. This would have brought the pax home and the technical lads could fix the stricken aircraft.
So as its busy this time of year I have my doubts about this, so what happens in these situations? Do EI have an arrangement in place with some service crew out at airports such as Faro to fix this problem or do they send out their own guys.
Also where will this other plane come from later today, I just have my doubts that EI can afford to have planes and crews hanging around 'on call'.

A320

They can give a call out to a local line maintenance crew who may be able to fix the problem,depends on the problem what action will be taken by EI,they may have the part in DUB etc etc.not too sure on how the standby crew system works so someone else will help answer that

MoeJay

Many different things at play here, really difficult to put it down to one thing...

e.g.
- ad hoc maintenance only at an outstation
- limited spares (if any) if required at an outstation
- limited spare crew/ a/c as it's peak season and the weekend...
- possible other tech problems elsewhere in the fleet
- possible other planes delayed throughout the network
- possible high load factors meaning inability to double up on e.g. LHR rotations to free up an a/c
- could be waiting on a spare to get to DUB to be able to get it to FAO to fix a/c
- attempts to limit disruption knock-ons to the schedule into tomorrow

I'm sure others can add to that list!

Jamie2k9

kub wrote: »

Hi all,
Some relatives were due to come home this morning to Cork on EI897 from Faro.
The plane departed Cork earlier this morning and arrived into Faro. There was a delay before pax were allowed board. Eventually they did, but after a while were taken off the aircraft again.
So now a replacement plane is due out there at 22:00.
I can appreciate that this is a technical problem and EI are doing the best that they can in this situation.
I would have imagined that a spare aircraft and crew could have been found in Dublin, with a few spare parts and a few mechanics. This would have brought the pax home and the technical lads could fix the stricken aircraft.
So as its busy this time of year I have my doubts about this, so what happens in these situations? Do EI have an arrangement in place with some service crew out at airports such as Faro to fix this problem or do they send out their own guys.
Also where will this other plane come from later today, I just have my doubts that EI can afford to have planes and crews hanging around 'on call'.

Aer Lingus will have no spare aircraft and crew to send out until the afternoon. Most days of t he week there is no spare aircraft available until after lunchtime and as its the weekend its the bussiest days of the week for EI. I would also say such a long delay is very rare for EI and it must be a major tech fault.

As for what happens in these situations if it was the evening there is a high chance the flight would of being cancelled and operated the next day. EI tend to handle delays well and do everything possible to get replacment aircraft etc out asap.

You may like to know its a problem with one of the door on the aircraft and as far as I know there will not be a replacment aircraft send out yet as eingneers are traveling on DUB-FAO this eveing scheduled to arrive in FAO at 19.48 to fix the problem.

kub

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

Aer Lingus will have no spare aircraft and crew to send out until the afternoon. Most days of t he week there is no spare aircraft available until after lunchtime and as its the weekend its the bussiest days of the week for EI. I would also say such a long delay is very rare for EI and it must be a major tech fault.

As for what happens in these situations if it was the evening there is a high chance the flight would of being cancelled and operated the next day. EI tend to handle delays well and do everything possible to get replacment aircraft etc out asap.

You may like to know its a problem with one of the door on the aircraft and as far as I know there will not be a replacment aircraft send out yet as eingneers are traveling on DUB-FAO this eveing scheduled to arrive in FAO at 19.48 to fix the problem.

Thank you James, boards is brilliant for info, you are testiment to it.

dubdaymo

Funny, I was just checking through the Aer Lingus section on Pprune earlier today and there is a report of an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Faro on 14th June (10 days ago) having to divert to Lisbon due to problems with cabin pressure. It says the passengers were bussed to Faro from Lisbon so must have been serious. Wonder if it was the same plane.

Tenger

dubdaymo wrote: »

Funny, I was just checking through the Aer Lingus section on Pprune earlier today and there is a report of an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Faro on 14th June (10 days ago) having to divert to Lisbon due to problems with cabin pressure. It says the passengers were bussed to Faro from Lisbon so must have been serious. Wonder if it was the same plane.

Chances are pretty slim. coincidence only.

dercu

dubdaymo wrote: »

Funny, I was just checking through the Aer Lingus section on Pprune earlier today and there is a report of an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Faro on 14th June (10 days ago) having to divert to Lisbon due to problems with cabin pressure. It says the passengers were bussed to Faro from Lisbon so must have been serious. Wonder if it was the same plane.

Its was an A321 which diverted on the 14th, and it was a problem with a cockpit window.

Jamie2k9

And Cork have only A320 based....

dercu

Yes the simple answer.
But they can rotate A321's in if the need to due loads, but mainly based in Dublin, they haven't in Cork for awhile now.

dubdaymo

It was an A321 which diverted on the 14th, and it was a problem with a cockpit window

Thanks dercu for that info.

kub

dercu wrote: »

Yes the simple answer.
But they can rotate A321's in if the need to due loads, but mainly based in Dublin, they haven't in Cork for awhile now.

They were here once upon a time for the LHR route in the good ol days when they were full to the rafters.

L1011

The remaining A321s are the oldest craft in the fleet by a bit margin at this stage (due to being wholly owned, not leased) so you would expect more issues with them.

The days of there being demand for full 321s to LHR are, unfortunately, gone. If they came back we'd almost certainly have a third carrier on the route.

Delta Kilo

Do TAP, the Portuguese airline, have a maintenance facility at Faro?

TAP have a big maintenance operation for their all airbus fleet, surely it would have been better for Aer Lingus to liaise with them to solve the issue?