Originally Posted by
747_not_777
Very strong winds and gusting, and pretty bumpy, their messages said.. Only one runway open at 5am in SYD and facing in the wrong direction, so the Captain had to circle for a whole hour and landed pretty much bang on 6am from the North, when another runway opened...
Just out of interest - how much fuel will have been remaining, most likely, after an hour of circling? Clearly enough for it to be safe, but just wondered!
The restrictions on early landing at SYD are well known. So while I agree with
cpdc1030 that if the crew had known before departure that it would be impossible to land before 0600L, they might well have taken a ground delay at SIN, I wonder whether it's also possible that the crew took extra fuel on the basis that having to hold before landing at 0600L was a possibility but departed SIN in the hope that things would actually work out for a landing from the south. And while CBR would have been a reasonably close diversion field, it can pose some challenges (including weather) and MEL is commonly used by large aircraft diverting from SYD, so the aircraft may well also have had enough fuel to divert there rather than to CBR. At any rate, I'm sure that the aircraft had plenty of room for any extra fuel that the crew decided to carry; SIN-SYD is a short flight.