Fuel stop in June???
 

It's June already but looks like two transpacific getting into HKG today couldn't make it nonstop and had to land somewhere before making it to HKG. CX873 from SFO had to tech in TPE and arrived almost 90 minutes behind schedule. Meanwhile CX879, also from SFO, is also scheduled to make a stop in TPE and now estimated to arrive HKG 20:40 later this evening.

If this was Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr or even early May I wouldn't even bring this up. But hey we're already in June with summer just around the corner and the head winds are still bad? :confused: Honestly I don't remember any transpacific having to make a such stopover during this time of year for re-fueling purposes. Has anyone ever experience a fuel tech-stop during this time of year?

CX885 and 883 stopped today in ICN ( thursday June 5th) and CX 881 scheduled to be nonstop, stopped in TPE for refueling because of airport closing at CLK, bad weather in HKG. 881 was 2 hrs late getting HKG.

It's an unusual jet stream for June: eastward flights from HKG and SIN to SFO and LAX (the SQ non-stop A345) have been arriving up to an hour early. My last flight from HKG to SFO was doing over 700 mph ground speed almost to beginning of descent into San Francisco................

Yup. Certainly is the case.

Latest Update as at: Hong Kong Time 13:48, 07 Jun 2008 (Greenwich Mean Time 05:48, 07 Jun 2008).
Latest Update as at: Hong Kong Time 13:47, 07 Jun 2008 (Greenwich Mean Time 05:47, 07 Jun 2008).

When they do technical landing at airports that are not scheduled, do they still pay landing fees?

Diversions on 7th June
 

Not sure about emergency landings, but if its for refueling, airlines should be charged for landing fees as it is a foreseeable stop before taking off. Airports are not a free service and an airline makes a decision to take more weight than the flight's route allows.

yes the weather in HK was really really bad today...but this sentence above might be a bit exaggerated... :) many flights are delayed 1-2 hours today, both arrival and departure, but I think cancellations are much fewer than a hundred...

I am in Shenzhen today. Shenzhen is very close to Hong Kong. The weather is very bad. The rain is pouring down for hours. Many roads in Shenzhen were flooded and I can see cars pull over everywhere.

CX diversions are not weather related!
 

If you compare SQ1 which leaves about the same time as CX873 on 6 Jun, SQ1 made it non-stop to HKG at 06:41 on 7 Jun unlike CX873 which had a fuel stop at TPE. If it was weather related, all flights arriving around that time would have to be diverted.

I was on CX885 (LAX-HKG) on 23 May and the flight was diverted to KIX for fuel stop, and CX LAX ground staff told me that it was due to "stronger than normal headwinds". Interestingly, UA867 by United Airlines made it non-stop from LAX to HKG. Both flights are operated with B747-400, as in the case for SQ1 and CX873.

Diversions due to weather? It's more like CX aircraft's performance have deteriorated to the extent that they can't fly non-stop from US (SFO, LAX) to HKG with normal commercial load. Instead of restricting the payload that the flight carries, CX chose to inconvenient passengers with fuel stops, and worse of all, cheated passengers by blaming it on weather.

I've feedback to CX via the online website, but so far no response at all. Seems like they don't really care about passengers anymore.

Unlike the Cathay Pacific flight, both the United and Singapore flights have HKG as the intermediate destination, continuing to Ho Chi Minh and Singapore respectively.

I suspect that was the reason why HKG gave them priority landing, whereas the CX flight/flights as HKG for final dest. do not have priority landing.

Since CX is based out of HKG, they have 'spare' planes at HKG that could be used for substitution.

I won't be so harsh and say that CX aircraft performance have deteriorated that much. Most aircraft performance do deteriorate over time, but not to the extend that it will require a tech stop on a normal load.

But having said that, the CX diversion could also be due to the different fuel policy used by different airline. The absolute minimal by law (in HK and most country) are that you will need to land with your reserve fuel (in HK, reserve fuel is define, 30 mins holding at 1500ft)... of course, being a conservative carrier like CX, we don't do that... so we add Alternate fuel on top of that as well... normally Alternate is Macau... but with weather being bad every where around the area... maybe the alternate today is actually Koashing, Manila or even Taipei... with that extra fuel required, maybe that's the reason why CX can't make it to HK.

As for why SQ can make it to HK? I don't know their policy, maybe they are allow to carry holding fuel + reserve instead of alternate to Taipei + reserve... or maybe their policy allow them to be a little bit less conservative and use Guangzhou... we do have to remember that SQ is based in Singapore... and Singapore is near the Equator and there's a lot more thunderstorm there that will have an impact to their operations... so maybe their policy is written in such a way that allow them to continue to HK on that day...

So having said all of that... it is pointless to argue about why SQ makes it to HK yet CX didn't make it... no airline want to have a refueling stop, it cost them more money, than if they could have make it non-stop...

Although, one last point though... SQ could also have a lighter load as well... SFO & LAX to HKG are usually full of cargo... and this maybe the reason why CX can not make it... but usually CX will offload cargo and pax to ensure a non-stop flight, except if it is the very profitable express cargo (like your UPS and FedEx letter) or full-fare passenger. So I doubted it is due to cargo, unless CX is getting a lot of express cargo business lately... which i doubted... FedEx and UPS and DHL got a lot of their own flight going to HKG anyway... Anyway, this is just my two cents...

Actually. I beg to differ on this point. I've been on quite a few transpac. flights that have diverted to ICN or TPE. In no way did they take off any cargo; in fact when they knew we would be diverting anyway, they added cargo.

Please back this up with fact - and sending an online note and not getting an immediate response isn't sufficient. Others have pointed out the horrendous weather in the region. I say better safe than sorry. There is no business appointment or personal travel that merits risking the lives of passengers and flight crew.


http://www.angrybackhand.com

Back up with facts? I wouldn't have the exact details unless I am working in CX. But the fact that SQ and UA made it non-stop and CX didn't, it is an indication that either SQ and UA had lighter loads than CX, or CX's aircraft performance has deteriorated to that point that it is sensitive to the slightest increase in headwinds.

Please read my post again. I was on CX885 23 May, not CX873 6 Jun. Hence, I am not using the "non-immediate response" to back my claims. And there was no "thunder storms" or "typhoons" or "pouring rains" when I arrive HKG at 9pm on 24 May, just the normal warm and humid weather in HKG. If the weather in HKG is bad enough to warrant a diversion, I am not that insane to insist on a non-stop flight to land in the middle of the bad weather. The fact that I received an sms from CX NotiFLY saying that CX885/23May will be diverted to TPE > 4 hours before departure (9:04am LAX time, STD was 1:10pm) means that this diversion was planned even before flight arrived into LAX (fyi, the inbound flight CX884 STA was 11:25am). If UA867 made it non-stop and it departed 5 mins earlier than CX885, surely the diversion can't be due to weather as claimed by CX LAX staff.

2 weeks has passed since I did the online feedback and no one from CX bothered to contact me. And I'm still waiting for a truthful explanation from CX.