Originally Posted by
beyond
Flight SFO-BWI diverted to IAD after circling a while, then canceled there. They tried to claim weather, but I believe the crew had timed out as UA plane behind us made it into BWI, as well as most other flights and airport remained open after landing in IAD.
Alaskaair.com had the plane continuing to BWI, even after we got off the plane and had to claim bags and go on our own. No shuttle/bus or any help.
As has always been true of all airlines, they use the excuse "weather" for anything, even if ultimately it's their operation [i.e. crew in this case and/or forecasting enough fuel] that prevented the plane from ended up at original destination.
Airport ops at BWI while we were on the ground at IAD.
Pilots don't typically "time out" midair and just land at the nearest airport. There are instance where they know the pilots will time out enroute and they will divert to an airport on the way and do a quick crew swap - but IAD and BWI are too close together to make diverting to IAD such a scenario. My guess is they were given a continued holding pattern and, after already holding, had to divert to IAD to refuel. As for the airline "not predicting in advance and loading enough fuel" - they don't send planes out with minimum fuel and hope for the best. They plan based on what they know and go from there. If weather caused a fuel diversion then that's weather - not poor planning.
Did you choose to deplane at IAD and go on your own rather than continue with the airplane onto BWI? If I'm wrong, my apologies, but based on what you say here the plane did eventually go on to BWI. That was the transportation - they aren't going to offer you the choice of ground transport too.
Just edited to add that AS wasn't the only airline to divert. UA did have diversions as well. Seems there was a fairly narrow window right around 3p where traffic backed up considerably because of weather and that caused some airlines to divert.