lougord99

This was a new one to me. I was flying the last flight of the night from STL to MDW. Everyone is in their seats and it is push time. The captain comes on and says there will be a short delay because we need to offload fuel. 10 minutes later Captain says they are still working on it. After sitting for 20-25 minutes Captain says that we all need to leave the plane, but leave all your carry-ons on the plane.

5 minutes after everyone was off, they want to start reloading. No one without a mobile boarding pass has one. They announce that we must show ID and they will cross us off the list. Several people shout that they told us to leave carry-ons on the plane and they don't have their ID's. Oh. More conferring. OK, just tell us your full name. Needless to say, it took quite a long time to get everyone back on the plane.

Amazingly, everyone got back into their original seats and there were no fights over seats.

To Southwest's credit, it appears that they held the flights of everyone who was connecting - about 4 flights.

LegalTender

No crew was asked - or ventured - an explanation?

The captain said nothing after everyone re-boarded?

Holy hell.

LegalTender

If "off-loading fuel" was a contrivance to cover a security alert - which it sorta sounds like to me - the captain would look like a fool trying to uphold the bogus pretext.

No flight officer has credibility to squander.

Kevin AA

Absurd!

lougord99

I don't think so. As I was walking past the cockpit, I heard a radio transmission in the cockpit from what appeared to be ground personal talking about the fuel.

Nothing was said after we reboarded.

This was a completely full plane to a very short runway, so fuel load is certainly important.

LegalTender

Roger that. So the captain referenced a "very short runway?"

Wikipedia lists 11,000 ft. and 9,000 ft. runways at STL.

lougord99

Other way around. STL to MDW. MDW has 6,000 - 6,500 ft. runways.

Also, only 41 minutes in the air. We don't burn much off enroute.

joshua362

So the million dollar question, apparently fuel offloading requires a passenger-less plan, presumably due to the risks involved? FAA rule?

Yellowjj

You would think this would have been factored into the equation from the get go. It sounds like the re-fueller overfilled the plane.

ursine1

I've experienced similar clusters at least a couple times with Southwest -- offloading the whole plane then reboarding in a huge disorganized mess. Once we reboarded for the sole purpose of retrieving our carry-ons and belongings, after initially being told to leave them but then being told our flight was "moved to another plane" which actually turned out to later be cancelled (before we boarded the new plane, which to my knowledge never actually existed).

But never deplaned so they could de-fuel. Odd.

Often1

On a micro hop like this, all it takes is a reroute for an aircraft expecting to depart and land to the west, now headed direct. If properly fueled for the original routing, would likely make the aircraft heavy on arrival.

It's far from unusual and the Captain's announcement seems to have said all that there is to be had.

Needless to say, the WN practice of collecting paper BP's makes this is a silly process later, but WN sticks to lots of silly practices which don't make much sense.

BerenErchamion

Lots of possibilities came to mind...perhaps the wind shifted, either changing fuel burn en-route or actually changing the distance flown (by changing which runway end would be in use, for example), perhaps there were storms they were planning on having to go around which have since dissipated...perhaps some exceptionally heavy baggage was loaded...could be many reasons.

I don't know how far in advance they plan these things (there's someone on here who might, though that might also be information he's not allowed to share), but depending on when it is there's a lot that could change between then and when things actually get under way.

OPNLguy

[QUOTE=BerenErchamion;25347555
I don't know how far in advance they plan these things (there's someone on here who might, though that might also be information he's not allowed to share), but depending on when it is there's a lot that could change between then and when things actually get under way.[/QUOTE]

Actually, it was one of my flights, and I'm checking into it....

Peoriaman1

What do the other airlines use?

lougord99

They use paper boarding passes, but they give them back to you after scanning.