Travel Trivia

Quote: Ayecarumba

Is the #1 foreign airport supposed to be a destination in and of itself, or are most travelers just passing through? I don't see a lot of ads for it as a place to go out here in the southwest U.S.

The ranking does not distinguish between travelers using that airport as an origin or destination (O&D) and those using it as a transfer point.

O&D information is not collected routinely, but the FAA does surveys.

Quote: Pacomartin

I think that NAS simply planned those flights for a MAX-8, but they simply has to start with a B737-800 until they got their delivery. I doubt they want to make an extra stop on a regular basis.

The best laid plans and all that.... the point is if seasonal headwinds make a refueling stop, say, 70% likely for any given flight, it might be best to schedule in the stop at an airport with a pre-clearance facility.

The upside is going through customs and immigration sooner. The downside is maybe this type of stop takes longer than just refueling elsewhere.

There's also the matter of airport usage fees, fuel payments, etc.

Quote: Nareed

The best laid plans and all that.... the point is if seasonal headwinds make a refueling stop, say, 70% likely for any given flight, it might be best to schedule in the stop at an airport with a pre-clearance facility.

I would think if it was a significant percentage they simply wouldn't schedule that route with that aircraft.
My guess is the percentages are always in the low single digits.

I know they used to have a real problem with Qantas's B747 from DFW to Sydney. It had to stop in Brisbane to refuel. If it was really windy, they simply wouldn't load the luggage on the plane and send it later. Once they put on A380 on that route, they had no more problems.

I had a question about those diversion stops in the image. Of the 7 airports only Reykjavik and Shannon are closer to Europe. That must mean the plane took off and they knew they didn't have enough fuel to make it.

Presumably the other 5 airports were used because of a calculation done en-route.




You only run out of fuel flying westward. Headwinds in 2011-2012 winter averaged 60 knots instead of an average of 30 knots for the previous 12 winters.

This map done in Dec 2011 shows
United's trans-Atlantic 757s routes to Newark (gold)
United's trans-Atlantic 757s routes to Washington Dulles (blue)
selected diversion airports used by United's trans-Atlantic 757s for refueling (red)
3200-nautical mile range from Newark (green)

Quote: Pacomartin

I would think if it was a significant percentage they simply wouldn't schedule that route with that aircraft.

AFAIK, NAS has a choice only between assorted 737s and the 787. The latter isn't a large wide body, but it's too much replacement for a narrow body.

Quote:

I had a question about those diversion stops in the image. Of the 7 airports only Reykjavik and Shannon are closer to Europe. That must mean the plane took off and they knew they didn't have enough fuel to make it.

It might also indicate where they ran into stiff headwinds.

On Ryanair, I guess the plan is to have the passengers get off and push rather than refuel :)

Quote: Pacomartin

Answer: Rank of all 9 airports

LHR
YYZ
CUN
NRT
MEX
FRA
CDG
ICN
YVR

Regarding LHR, I flew out of there a few years ago. As I recall, there was an enormous wing of the airport devoted to departures to the USA.

On a similar note, YYZ (Toronto) (How did it get that code?) has a whole separate section for the airport for USA departures. Traffic is diverted according to whether flying to the USA or not. You actually clear US customs there in Toronto so you don't have to fuss with it landing in the US.

Also been to MEX and ICN but have no good comments to make. ICN (Seoul) is one of the finest airports I've ever been to.

Speaking of windy... Here's a scary landing:

Emirates A380 lands in heavy crosswinds in Germany

Need new tires for the plane and new drawers for the cockpit crew.

Quote: Wizard

On a similar note, YYZ (Toronto) (How did it get that code?) has a whole separate section for the airport for USA departures

The story I heard regarding assigning YYZ to Toronto
The international meeting to decide airport codes was held in Canada
Therefore they picked last and a lot of the codes they wanted to use were gone
So they decided to code most of their Canadian airports with 1st letter Y to be consistent.
Edmonton YEG
Vancouver YVR
Calgary YYC
ect

Quote: Ayecarumba

Speaking of windy... Here's a scary landing:

Emirates A380 lands in heavy crosswinds in Germany

Need new tires for the plane and new drawers for the cockpit crew.

The video to me just looked like the crew did their job and the plane acted as expected. Not scary at all.

Quote: Nareed

The best laid plans and all that.... the point is if seasonal headwinds make a refueling stop, say, 70% likely for any given flight, it might be best to schedule in the stop at an airport with a pre-clearance facility..

Here are the ranges for the Continental/United B757 flights which is supposed to have a "still air range" of 3850 nmi. Under normal circumstances that should be plenty of a buffer, but the winds were an average of 60 knots that winter, as opposed to 30 knots for the 12 winters before.

These unscheduled stops are expensive for the airline as they have to provide compensation for missed connections, and hotel stays. So I would say if there was more than a few percentage of unplanned stops that had to be made, the airline wouldn't run the route with that equipment

EWR SNN 2,690 nm
EWR BFS 2,761 nm
EWR DUB 2,775 nm
EWR GLA 2,806 nm
EWR EDI 2,840 nm
EWR MAN 2,915 nm
EWR LIS 2,942 nm
EWR BHX 2,948 nm
EWR LHR 3,012 nm
EWR MAD 3,134 nm
EWR CDG 3,171 nm
EWR OSL 3,213 nm
EWR BCN 3,344 nm
EWR CPH 3,361 nm
EWR FRA 3,363 nm
EWR ARN 3,415 nm
EWR STR 3,421 nm
EWR TXL 3,459 nm
....
IAD CDG 3,356 nm
IAD AMS 3,361 nm

Quote: Wizard

Regarding LHR, I flew out of there a few years ago. As I recall, there was an enormous wing of the airport devoted to departures to the USA.

On a similar note, YYZ (Toronto) (How did it get that code?) has a whole separate section for the airport for USA departures. Traffic is diverted according to whether flying to the USA or not. You actually clear US customs there in Toronto so you don't have to fuss with it landing in the US.

Well, Heathrow and Toronto are at the top of the list, with a big jump to #3 (Cancun).

There are 15 of those 39 airports that are in Latin America and the Caribbean.