On July 29th, this flight was already at least 2 hours late out of YUL heading for PHL. Apparently, the flight left YUL with a little too much fuel, and had to inflict a self-imposed delay on itself of at least 20 minutes. Watertown VOR seemed the most out-of-way place to allow something like this to happen.
You know its a bad day when you plan for a delay so much you cause even more delays when you get your departure release sooner than expected. I wish I could say this is the first time I’ve seen this happen.
ya, I have to agree with Demi. No one would waste that much fuel holding, unless it was wx.
CYUL isn’t exactly someplace that is known for delays. Even airports with known delays ie. KJFK, KPHL, KLAX ect. will have flow control pucedures published so that we don’t have to waste our time (fuel) holding as we go in. The dispatchers have all this and it results in a gate delay, not holding en route.
Yes occasionally we have to hold b/c of congestion, airport closers, or WX. But I have never held b/c I had TOO much fuel. I would be surprised if they weren’t below landing weight by the time they got to their destination after an 1 hr flight.
DeltaMike works at Boston Center. He probably has first-hand knowledge of what the pilots said on the radio.
And they were going to PHL, they were coming from CYUL.
Ya, I’ve held going into KPHL, but never more then 2 turns. And never because I took on to much fuel. Dang wants the world coming to when you tanker fuel out of Canada??? Is JET-A that much in KPHL now?? Me wonders if someone in dispatch didn’t make a small error and forget to carry a 1 somewhere. Or maybe the capt. ordered a little padding.
Works at Center eh? That explains the ZBW in the signature.
When I lived in NH I was only about 6 miles away from the center complex. DM never invited me in for a tour though.
Check out his website to find his blog to find this:
My area of specialty is Area A, which includes airspace above eastern upstate New York.
http://photos-404.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-sctm/v21/46/64/29400404/n29400404_30604377_503.jpg
DM, I think it’s funny that you have maps of the center sectors on your wall. What kind of LOSER… (I transformed the ceiling of my bedroom at my parent’s house into a map. I cut and taped a bunch of WAC charts together for form the eastern half of the US, and then I put map tacks in each of the airports I’ve ever landed at.)
…But first I had to travel to the 4 corners of the map so it wouldn’t fall down.
-Mitch Hedburg- 1968-2005
Yeah, yeah, I’m a looser, get over it. And yes, thats where I work, and thats my airspace.
A more common occurrence is pilots refusing shortcuts due to fuel weight. I guess what happens is dispatch and pilots figure out how long they thing they have to either wait in line for takeoff or hold enroute and load fuel accordingly. If they get way less of a delay than expected, and the aircraft has a weight issue (for whatever reason, they can only have so much gas on board at time of landing or the plane may not be able to take it), they have to burn it off, either by flying lower, not taking shortcuts, or, when its extreme, as the situation was on sunday night into PHL, hold for a while. In this case, ART was a nice quiet place to hold.
DM
PS. Hey Cfi, I was hired by the FAA in 2005. So, I guess you missed me.
