nombody

Was flying back from TLV to EWR on Sunday on flight 85, and the plane had taxied out to the runway and was next in line for takeoff when the captain told us over the PA system that we were returning to the terminal.

Apparently, headquarters had called them to say that the outside temperature in Tel Aviv had gone up by more than 2 degrees Celsius since we left the terminal, and therefore our weight was now over the limit for that temperature since there was a lot of cargo on board. We had to go back to the terminal where they unloaded some cargo. By then of course, we had lost our takeoff slot or our slot for the corridor across Europe, and we had to wait even more time until we were re-cleared for takeoff. Takeoff time was finally 1 hour and 40 minutes after our scheduled departure time. (We also had to wait on landing because our gate was not available yet).

The route map displays in the cabin did show that the outside temperature in Tel Aviv while we were waiting there was 100 degress fahrenheit. There was quite a heat wave this past weekend in Israel.

Has anyone ever experienced this as a reason for a delay?

ConciergeMike

I personally have not experienced it, but temperature is a very valid reason for adjusting the load of an aircraft. I'm sorry to hear that your flight was worse than this:

sbm12

Although I've never heard it explained that way, weight & balance issues are very important and I would never want the pilot to risk taking off in a plane that is not operating within the defined specs, even if it means a delay.

channa

Yeah, usually they catch that stuff beforehand, but if the temp changes enough and rapidly, it happens.

formeraa

Las Vegas, with high winds and excessive heat, can have these sorts of problems. A few years ago, it got so hot in PHX (over 120 F) that they had to close the airport for a few hours.

craz

Actually its not "weird" but a perfectly reasonable reason for a delay

so much so that JetBlue in the summer is forced to fly out of BUR with a # of seats left Empty so that they will be able to make it all the way to JFK w/o having to stop to refuel. In extreme hot conditions it takes more fuel to take off and the weight of the plane is important as to how much fuel will be needed.

Id rather that delay then either to have a water landing, or be woken up a few hrs after taking off (the 90 is a red-eye out of TLV) to fasten my seat belt and put my seat up right as we are landing for refueling.

More Important if a plane is too heavy and trys to take-off and doesnt it simply crashes, OP if it was me on that flight, Id be Thanking CO for doing exactly what they did

Billiken

Used to go to Ecuador 3-4 x/year.

Several times flying out of Quito (on AA 757s) we had to burn off excess fuel because the temperature had risen too much and we were overweight.

Once, after the announcement, someone in coach yelled (in English):

"TOSS THE NON-REVS"

johdhj

That's awesome. Is that real??

Mackieman

Same thing happens on flights out of Vail and other ski destinations.

belynch

I was on a US737 a few years ago that was loaded with too much fuel for the short hop from BNA(?) to CLT.

We sat in the Penalty Box () with engines revved burning fuel. The pilot told us this was much more efficient than offloading the fuel for some reason.

I should note that this was before oil spiked and in the middle of a labor dispute with US pilots in regards to the integration of HP and US seniority lists. No idea if that had anything to do with anything, but we were burnin' lots of US' dollars.

rkkwan

[sarcasm]Weight would not be an issue if you were flying an AF Concorde, as long as you didn't follow a CO DC-10 on take off.[/sarcasm]

sfogate

Hey, that's not nice.

channa

Yeah, F would be empty, and it would expose all the shenanigans.

mbreuer

It's not more fuel so much as reduced lift. Hot air is thinner. Reduced lift->higher speed required to lift off. Higher speed is fine as long as you can stay on the runway through takeoff or after an RTO. To reduce the distance needed you have to reduce the required airspeed.... thus less weight.

KFinTX

I took a flight from LGA a few years back & they kept changing the number of stand-bys they could let on the plane because of the weight restrictions in place because of the weather. At least, that's what they told us.