SunWing screws up again

[westbankkid]

Looks like Sunwing are up to their usual tricks. They left a 12 year old unaccompanied girl sitting at the airport for 8 hours. The grandparents paid 50 bucks to have her looked after. They also diverted another flight to Abbotsford because of low fuel...Go figure.

[Captain Awesome]

[twobits]

Looks like Sunwing are up to their usual tricks. They left a 12 year old unaccompanied girl sitting at the airport for 8 hours. The grandparents paid 50 bucks to have her looked after. They also diverted another flight to Abbotsford because of low fuel...Go figure.

Did ya happen to notice it is winter and a major storm has hit the West Coast disrupting all flight schedules? Rather than circle for hours until they run out of fuel I think the prudent thing to do would be to divert to Abbotsford. This is also a common time of year for planes to encounter strong headwinds coming north so they burn more fuel.
This seems more like a troll post cuz you got refused a cocktail on your last flight than any concerns for passengers safety.

Besides that, Sunwing is a discount charter airline. If you want guaranteed arrival times (choke choke), room for your feet, and chocolate covered strawberries instead of a bad of peanuts, I suggest you open your wallet.

[westbankkid]

Did ya happen to notice it is winter and a major storm has hit the West Coast disrupting all flight schedules? Rather than circle for hours until they run out of fuel I think the prudent thing to do would be to divert to Abbotsford. This is also a common time of year for planes to encounter strong headwinds coming north so they burn more fuel.
This seems more like a troll post cuz you got refused a cocktail on your last flight than any concerns for passengers safety.

Besides that, Sunwing is a discount charter airline. If you want guaranteed arrival times (choke choke), room for your feet, and chocolate covered strawberries instead of a bad of peanuts, I suggest you open your wallet.

They were supposed to land in Vancouver from Mazatland. Apparently they didn't load enough fuel. Vancouver to Abbotsford is 70K... No excuse. What about leaving a 12 year old uanattended for 8 hours that was left in the care of Sunwing? No excuse for that. This was in 2 days. They have a lot of screw ups. I would rather pay extra for an airline that cares. Sunwing doesn't.
I have never flown nor will I ever fly Sunwing.

[Bsuds]

I have never flown nor will I ever fly Sunwing.

No excuse for leaving the kid alone and I'm sure SunWing will miss your business.
Will probably put them under...feel better now?

[Jx3]

They were supposed to land in Vancouver from Mazatland. Apparently they didn't load enough fuel. Vancouver to Abbotsford is 70K... No excuse.

"No excuse" Who the *&%$ are you to make that call?? Clearly you have zero knowledge of the aviation industry!

How exactly were you wronged by this again?

[XT225]

Perhaps you should pick on WJ while you're at it? After all, they screwed up big time by running out of de-icing fluid at YLW.
Seriously: S__t happens.

[Dizzy1]

They were supposed to land in Vancouver from Mazatland. Apparently they didn't load enough fuel. Vancouver to Abbotsford is 70K... No excuse.

Talk about clueless. This is how it works, you load enough fuel for your flight + enough fuel for 2 approaches at your destination + enough fuel for a predetermined alternate depending on aircraft range, weather and airport facilities + fuel for 1 approach + 30 minutes of reserve.

Now, according to the article ...
http://globalnews.ca/news/1755135/why-w ... w-on-fuel/
... the flight encountered heavy headwinds ... headwinds increase fuel consumption and decrease your range. Now, if you end up burning more fuel than expected enroute and you dip into your approach and alternate fuel, you are getting low on fuel and once you dip into your reserve, you must declare a low fuel emergency. If you are a pilot, its simply sound and correct judgment to land elsewhere then risk putting yourself, your aircraft, your crew and your passengers into unnecessary risk.

Sure Abbotsford is only 100km away, but you have to look at the big picture ... it takes extra fuel to get to YVR and what if you have to do a missed approach for some reason, or maybe 2 and then end up having to go back to Abbotsford where you risk dipping into your reserve?

Smart pilots ... they did EXACTLY what they are trained to do. No excuses!

[Dizzy1]

Was just catching up on one of my aviation forums and this past week has had quite a few unscheduled fuel stops on westbound flights due to headwinds ...

Just as an example, DL5693 from MSP to YVR stopped off at MOT for fuel and USAirways had a flight stop off in MCI on its way from PHL to SEA.

[Dizzy1]

Strong jet stream forcing airliners to make Labrador retrievals

Goose Bay airport sees surge in westward flights stopping to refuel as they face heavy headwinds across the Atlantic. For Europe-bound flights, the jet stream has the opposite effect.

The intense jet stream over the North Atlantic is making a Labrador airport a popular spot for airlines looking to refuel.

Flight times from Europe to North America are being stretched as pilots face strong headwinds, sometimes forcing unplanned refuelling stops in Goose Bay.

“We get a fair amount of airlines stopping at this time of year,” said Don White, operations manager at Woodward Aviation, which operates at the Goose Bay airport. “They probably have enough fuel, but being on the safe side, they stop and get extra fuel just in case.”

White said the additional stops usually begin in October or November, but he estimates that in December, there were as many as 30 aircraft arriving there.

“We’ve had United Airlines, American Airlines, British Airways,” he said. “We had one yesterday, and we’ll probably have another couple tomorrow.”

The jet stream is made up of a ribbon of strong winds in the upper levels of the atmosphere, nine to 16 kilometres above the surface of the Earth. It is usually concentrated in a narrow zone — thousands of kilometres long and hundreds of kilometres wide — where cold polar air meets warm tropical air.

“The strength of the jet stream is directly proportional to the temperature difference underneath it,” said John Gresiak, a senior forecaster with AccuWeather Inc. in Pennsylvania.

This year, the difference is magnified by a bubble of warmer-than-usual air over places such as Bermuda and the Bahamas, in contrast to the cold air over central Canada and the northeastern United States.

That means winds have been strong, on average as much as 240 kilometres an hour, Gresiak said.

Pilots en route to North America try to avoid the jet stream, which means they may have to fly longer distances to skirt it, thereby burning more fuel.

“If they are going with it, it’s a good thing — they can get there faster and use less fuel,” Gresiak said, noting that recent Europe-bound flights have been shorter than scheduled.

Last week, a British Airways flight from New York to London came close to hitting the speed of sound, covering the route in five hours 16 minutes, CNN reported. The sonic barrier is broken at 1,224 kilometres an hour.

The Boeing 777 jet reached ground speeds of up to 1,200 kilometres an hour, thanks to the jet stream of up to 322 kilometres an hour.

“It looks like the area of warm air may shift eastward, over the Atlantic, but it still looks like a pretty strong jet stream, at least over the next week or so,” Gresiak said.

Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said flight durations can vary on account of headwinds, but so far Air Canada has not encountered anything outside normal seasonal fluctuations.

United Airlines, which operates from several European cities to the U.S. east coast, has had to make fuel stops in both Goose Bay and Bangor, Maine.

Spokeswoman Mary Ryan said the airline has faced much stronger headwinds than usual, which has resulted in the flight diversions.

United flies Boeing 757 airplanes over the Atlantic. They have a smaller seat capacity — ideal if there isn’t enough demand to fill a larger plane. However, the 757 has a shorter range than other jets, requiring refuelling stops if there are strong headwinds.

“Of course, we understand it is an inconvenience, but it allows us to fly all the passengers who are booked without having to make any bumps,” Ryan said. “Fortunately, these periods tend to be short-lived. We look forward to calmer air as we head toward spring.”

http://www.thestar.com/business/2015/01 ... evals.html

I did find this part quite entertaining though ... and I was actually quite surprised that just about every media outlet screwed this up ...

Last week, a British Airways flight from New York to London came close to hitting the speed of sound, covering the route in five hours 16 minutes, CNN reported. The sonic barrier is broken at 1,224 kilometres an hour.

The Boeing 777 jet reached ground speeds of up to 1,200 kilometres an hour, thanks to the jet stream of up to 322 kilometres an hour.

They really need to learn the difference between ground speed, indicated airspeed, true airspeed, calibrated airspeed, mach number, etc. The sound barrier has nothing to do with ground speed. Ground speed is a reference speed based on an aircrafts indicated air speed, altitude over the surface and winds. The sound barrier is not effected by any of those variables (other than atmospheric conditions and altitude) So even though that aircraft was travelling at 1200km/h ground speed, its airspeed is no different than it would have been with no wind or a headwind. A B777s cruise speed is still around Mach .80 (80% of the speed of sound) and the winds didn't change that.

If an aircraft is flying through the air at 800km/h with zero wind it has a ground speed of 800km/h ... if it has a tailwind of 200km/h the aircraft is still flying through the air at 800km/h but its ground speed is now 1000km/h ... if that wind was a headwind of 200km/h then the speed through the air is still 800km/h but its ground speed is now 600km/h. This is of course, just a simplified example without getting into other variables such as CAS etc.

[XT225]

Why not look at all the other airlines; EVERYone screws up; not just Sunwing:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/15 ... 80252.html

[Dizzy1]

Why not look at all the other airlines; EVERYone screws up; not just Sunwing:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/15 ... 80252.html

Yeah, but given the OP has started a couple of threads on SunWing (an airline he admitted he's never even been on) that would ruin his personal vendetta ;)

[Bsuds]

Probably works for Westjet.

[Dizzy1]

More drama queens looking for their 15min of fame ...

A lot of angry passengers have finally arrived home in Calgary after spending eight hours sitting on a Sunwing flight on the runway at the airport in Hamilton, Ont.

The flight from the Dominican Republic to Calgary stopped for a crew change and to refuel in Hamilton on Monday night as the area was being hit by a massive storm.

Sunwing says the poor weather conditions made it problematic to attach the ramp to the plane.

But passengers say it was a nightmare, with people demanding to get off and some having panic attacks.

Pauline Lamoureaux says the conditions were inhumane because there was no ventilation and few services on the plane.

She says they were only allowed to deplane around 5 a.m. Tuesday morning after someone called 911 for help.

"It wasn't a good scene at all," she says.

"We knew that Hamilton seemed like a crazy place to stop, because we were leaving Punta Cana and going to Calgary, we heard there's an ice storm in Ontario," says Jessica Kowalski. "Why are we stopping there? It didn't make any sense."

Passengers were eventually taken to a hotel paid for by Sunwing, where they got an hour or two of sleep before being placed on another flight home to Calgary.

The company apologized for the inconvenience and is offering passengers a $150 travel voucher.

I love this part ...

"We knew that Hamilton seemed like a crazy place to stop, because we were leaving Punta Cana and going to Calgary, we heard there's an ice storm in Ontario," says Jessica Kowalski. "Why are we stopping there? It didn't make any sense."

http://www.castanet.net/news/Canada/155 ... -on-tarmac

... yet when you book the flight ...

Flight details
Airline
Flight No* Class Supplier Departing City Departing
Date & Time Arriving City Arriving
Date & Time
Sunwing Airlines
WG452
Champagne Service P SUNWING VACATIONS Calgary (YYC) Mon. Jan 04, 2016
6:15 AM Punta Cana (PUJ)
Mon. Jan 04, 2016
3:45 PM
Sunwing Airlines
WG453
Champagne Service Y SUNWING VACATIONS Punta Cana (PUJ ) Mon. Jan 11, 2016
5:15 PM Calgary (YYC )
Tech Stop
Mon. Jan 11, 2016
11:50 PM

... it specifically says the flight makes a technical stop, and when you click on the link it says YHM for fuel. There is a reason for this, most flights north/westbound encounter headwinds and as I explained in the above posts headwinds will make you burn more fuel. The aircraft type does not have the range to fly from PUJ-YYC without refuelling - this is simple fact and it even tells you this before you purchase the ticket. The storm in Hamilton, unfortunately, made the fuel stop into a bit more of an ordeal than usual - welcome to Canadian Winter, probably the very reason people went to the DR in the first place.

Read before you purchase something, it'll save you a lot of drama.

And another tip, if you miss a connecting flight because you book tickets with a 35min layover time, don't blame the airline for your lack of common sense.

[mexi cali]

My only issue in these situations is that they hold passengers hostage for hours while they try to figure stuff out. IMO and only MO. priority if they know it is going to be more than an hour that they make debarking and follow up security a priority.

While stuff like this is going on, they don't tend to be overly free with updates and ETAs and people being people, there are problems.