CX881 and CX216 landed in Shenzhen today? (March 16?)
 

Friend coming from LAX, informed me he landed in SZX? Flightradar seems to confirm it, plus at least one other CX flight I notice (CX216 from MAN). Was it related to weather / fog issues at HKG?

Due to fog issue

thanks. I guess I'll tell him to sit tight. Apparently it was more than these two flights, and they're going to fly back to HKG.

Some flights diverted to Macau and Taipei also. No one allowed off the plane in SZX.

Will probably need to shuttle some pilots to those places as everyone is out of hours.

There must be more to this story?

I see 216, 288, 320, 881 went to Shenzhen, 252,260, 748 to Macau.

No other airlines appeared to divert or cancel at all, and all other arrivals around that time seemed pretty much normal, including many other Cathay flights.

I wonder if this was either a consequence of CX recent changes in flight crew policies so there are often fewer senior crew on the flight deck which maybe then means they can't do Cat III? Or was it because of some pilots seeing an opportunity to do some sort of contract compliance or lack of discretion to protest recent cuts in pay?

Could be, though in fog situations, the airport capacity is also reduced due to additional (safety) procedures brought in place, to avoid arising potentially conflicting situations, due to limited visual control from the tower. Think about Tenerife in 1977.

Sure, but 7 CX long-haul flights and none from any other airline? My guess is that with fewer senior crew they simply couldn't land in those conditions.

Sure, though there are some reasonable explanations for that:
- CX is pretty dominant on HKG, so statistically a high chance on diversion, etc.
- IF a US or EU based plane would be diverted and the crew times out, you have many, many passengers stranded for a long time, whereas the HKG based airline will have a lot of crew on standby or at least readily available, close by. Not only the inbound passengers, though also the outbound passengers.
- The HKG based airline can be expected to have spare aircraft available at HKG, so, disrupting the subsequently HKG outbound minimally, whereas a non-local airline will have to cancel the outbound flight, due to extremely late inbound aircraft, as well as the timed-out crew.
- HKG based crews can be expected to be far more familiar at SZX, which enhances the overall safety significantly.
- HKG based crews can be expected to be far more culturally on par in SZX, which makes solving operationally challenges much easier.
- A HKG based airline can be expected to have a significant ground crew at SZX (or at least very close by in HKG), which makes solving ground issues tremendously easier.
So, many serious reasons only CX planes got diverted.....

Except that surely then, for example, you'd divert the flight from Perth, whose crew would still have plenty of hours left to hop over as soon as things cleared, rather than the LAX which was 8 hours late as a result of needing a new crew?

Most likely it was due to fuel remaining onboard after a long haul flight from Europe or NAM. This would have prevented some aircraft from extended holding to wait for the fog to clear. For a Cat3A auto land into VHHH you need at least 200m to commence an approach, the 0700LT weather report showed visibility of 150m but the 8am report shows visibility of 1800m, so it's all to do with timing, fuel and a bit of luck !

By the way, to suggest cathay pilots were protesting or being belligerent is unreasonable and uncalled for. Pilots are tasked with getting passengers to their destinations as safely and quickly as possible and industrial relations should never affect the operation of the aircraft; and after all I'm sure they wanted to go home too !

It all highly depends on the circumstances, sequencing, fuel and when a crew gets the message to hold 1 hour, then they will run out of fuel, so holding would be useless, as such, divert immediately....

Not to say, a Perth originating flight would carry that much extra fuel anyway (unless the fog situation at HKG was already imminent, when then left at Perth and uploaded additional holding fuel.

And what bhyq says, the crew also wants to go home right after the flight (and keep their license/medical).

These assumptions don't make any sense to me. CX, KA, HX, UO all have no operation at SZX (or MFM), and the crew, except for diversion, will not have had experience with SZX (or MFM), either.

Could very well be, though overall, the items I listed are relevant aspects. AA can be expected to have far more difficulties to arrange IROPS at SZX then CX (or one of the others you list), to give an example. Let alone the language/cultural barrier.

I do have a high trust that a best overall solution has been chosen by ATC (and when applicable the crews/airlines).

Yes, sort of. Go to PPRUNE and see the whinging about the changes from 4 crew to 3 on long-haul and about having 2 Second Officers amongst the 4 on ultra-long-haul.

And unless I have misunderstood, fuel minimums are enough for "missed approach, 30 minute hold, then divert to alternate", and Shenzhen and Macau are too close to be counted as alternates (in case of typhoons the alternates are Taipei, Manila, Clark, Guangzhou, even Xiamen). So really I'm still not sure we have the whole picture.