Originally Posted by
N830MH
Right. They didn't landed in FLL. Why the pilot is supposed to landed in FLL instead of going to PBI, MCO, MLB, DAB. I knows exactly what they are doing. This not right things to do. He divert the flight to JAX. Because they are running out of fuel. Almost too impossible to landed in FLL due to bad weather. Runway isn't too wet at all.
MCO was picked as a diversion airport for several reasons:
- MIA doesn't have any WN operations there, and also had thunderstorms Thursday evening.
- PBI also has similar weather to FLL, and isn't a great idea to designate as an alternate airport for FLL.
- MLB doesn't have any WN operations.
- DAB doesn't have any WN operations, and is farther from FLL than MCO.
- TPA is 20 miles farther from FLL than MCO.
- JAX is 140 miles farther from FLL than MCO.
Distances from Great Circle Mapper
The reason for picking MCO is that it's the closest airport with WN services that consistently has different weather from FLL. The different weather part is key: Orlando is in the middle of the state, which means that storms form there in the early afternoon and then move outwards towards Melbourne or Tampa in the mid- to late afternoon; Ft. Lauderdale and Miami are on the coast and get late afternoon/evening storms that formed in the Everglades during the afternoon. When we see storms in South Florida, they're later in the day than they generally are in Orlando.
Picking an airport with similar weather for an alternate is a terrible and unsafe thing to do.
Picking an off-network airport means having to pay a more expensive rate to get services there and getting worse service, which hurts margins and customer service.
Picking a farther airport means you need more diversion fuel, which means increased fuel burn from the extra weight for fuel that probably won't be needed, which hurts margins.
Airline operations are already a difficult balance between safety, customer service, and profitability; contingency planning is successful when it upsets this balance the least.