Wellington Disruptions Today

[victor_alpha_charlie]

Apparently all (or at least a large number) of the flight delays at Wellignton today were due to lazy ANZ ground crew not wanting to get their girly little backsides out there in the rain- it would be nice if they would consider all the travellers they screwed over today.

[ZK-KAG]

I think B737's diverting to Palmy and then returning to AKL and CHC is a decision based slightly more on just groundcrew...

With Wind Shear on App and Dep, with x-wind over 25kts, and 35G45 at times and a 20 knot difference between the north and south end...I think thats good enough reason to divert. Not to mention the SIGMET for SEV TURB...

[benwynn]

If there was lightning about, the Tarmac gets closed off, so thats definently a possiblilty (due to ground staff I mean)

[ZK-KAG]

My apologies... 45G60 was the wind this afternoon for awhile.

[pacblue]

HEy, there was no sign of lightning at the airport this arvo, i worked the whole day and yes most air NZ and Qantas were canned just due to the weather i believe but pacific blue still operated. even though it was a bit delayed but id rather be half an hour late than sleep at wellington over night. but in saying that alot of our boys didnt feel too safe. like when i was dispatching an aircraft i had to stand even infront of the nose because the wind was pushing me dangerously close to the jet engines.

[Daniel]

What happened with Vincent Aviation Tom?
Did they make it in?

[Zacchaeus]

About two years ago, while working as a courier, I had to pick up something from The Warehouse, beside Wellington Airport. The weather was much like yesterday and the day before. The wind ripped my glasses off my face, blew them across a fairly wide road. They floated up in the wind before hitting the gutter. 30 minutes later I found them again, tangled in the chain link fence at a height of about one metre. After finding them again (hard to look for glasses without your glasses on), I cancelled all my other jobs in the lyall bay area. Personally felt trying to carry rear projection TVs out from customers houses in that kind of wind might be hazardous. I have no problems with ground crew deciding the conditions were not safe.

[victor_alpha_charlie]

QUOTE (Daniel @ Jul 25 2008, 07:23 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What happened with Vincent Aviation Tom?
Did they make it in?

All the Vincent flights made it in and out with no problems- just because one pilot reported windshear doesn't mean there actually was any. There were cases of planes making it in and taxiing to the gate before flying back to their departure point without letting passengers off, simply because there was nobody around prepared to take the bags off.. How annoyed would you be if you reached the arrival gate, only to have to fly all the way back to Taupo, for example, and be bussed down.

[Rebound]

I knew someone flying out of there last night and only the pacificblue flight wasn't cancelled - he was lucky he booked with them

[graemer]

I did WLG-AKL-WLG yesterday for work... what a mess.
Air NZ was only using the northern ramps in WLG so we went from gate 17 to 25a for our departure. On getting to 25a what do we find... a bunch of PacBlue passengers waiting for their plane. Asking several confused ground staff, we find that they actually meant gate 28.

So off out of international gates we go. Departure time comes and we are seated. Departure time goes and we are still seated.
Then, 3 passengers are recorded as missing. They might be lost so we will wait for them... 20 mins later they are deemed as no shows, but sadly they have luggage... This is where it went quiet. baggage handlers arrive and doors open, then suddenly, 3 embarrassed passengers arrive!
But wait - there is more... we spend another 20 minutes waiting for flight documentation to arrive! So much for my 9:30 meeting. Don't know if those 3 had their bags in AKL or not.

Anyway, 3:30pm rolls around and rumours at the office are that flights are delayed/cancelled. Call Air NZ and yes WLG closed, flights being cancelled, but your flight is later so turn up and see what happens.... Great. Glad I have that Koru membership!

Arrive at AKL and sure enough next couple of flights are cancelled and people sent away. Flight before mine is WLG-CHC. They board with a warning that WLG is still marginal and if closed, they will divert to Palm Nth (oh joy!).

My flight is called and we get a delay because the aircraft hasn't turn up yet (someone must have nicked it as there were 5 on the ground when I first turned up and half those were cancelled!).

After the delay we are on board and they ask if Mrs X is on board.... Nope... Mrs X has bags... Sigh here we go again... This time they go straight in, off load the bag, close the doors and we are off, only an hour late.

No excitement what so ever landing in WLG... just flew straight in (Gate 28 again - but no duty free or passport required).

So maybe the planes that landed and then took off again were at the international gates while the ground crew were at the original gate?

[WasFlightOps]

I remember when a couple of groundies pushing back an Emirates 777 at Auckland being struck by lightning. It blew the sole off their steel-capped boots. One good thing about Auck's was the thunderstorms, these Manawatu ones are nothing!

I think AirNZ 737 operations stop when the wind is 60kts or greater.

Whats the deal with the Vincent 732? When's it coming or was that just a pipedream?

Cheers

[Anthony]

QUOTE (victor_alpha_charlie @ Jul 25 2008, 12:21 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

All the Vincent flights made it in and out with no problems- just because one pilot reported windshear doesn't mean there actually was any. There were cases of planes making it in and taxiing to the gate before flying back to their departure point without letting passengers off, simply because there was nobody around prepared to take the bags off.. How annoyed would you be if you reached the arrival gate, only to have to fly all the way back to Taupo, for example, and be bussed down.

Really, really annoyed.

I saw it on the news and saw that it was bad, but not that bad.
Windy Wellignton weather in the way again.