jm6886

I am scheduled to travel on flight DL552 TGU (Tegucigalpa, Honduras) to Atlanta in one week's time. I've noticed for the past several days this flight has flown first to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Approx. 30 min later the plane continues on to Atlanta. Upon further investigation, the American Airlines (TGU-MIA) flight has also been making stops in San Pedro Sula for approximately the past week.

This is supposed to be a direct flight, so I assume there is some operational factor going on. It is worth noting that the UA TGU-IAH flight does NOT make this stop. Copa/Avianca flights also depart Tegucigalpa as normal.

Can anyone offer advice as to what might be the cause? It is worth noting as well the direct SAP-ATL flight is continuing to operate separately.

Thanks!

davetravels

I made a quick call to the DM hotline, and, the agent told me that there's really no info noted in the system as to why. <Which seems a little surprising>

That said - she DID tell me that, there's a note out of TGU that they were waiting for "WIND SHIFT", so, it may have something to do with weather & fuel.

Surely someone else with more knowledge can post more about it!

jm6886

Thanks davetravels- I appreciate the insight. I am likewise hoping that someone can shed additional details on the situation but I appreciate you checking!

Often1

It is still a direct flight. Merely not non-stop.

Usual reason for these is fuel.

C W

The route is only 1,359 miles.

Considering that the equipment is usually a 73W or a 757 I can't believe that there's a range problem, even in the most unfavorable conditions.

MSPeconomist

Could there be a fuel shortage at TGU? This especially would make sense if DL and AA are making the stop in only one direction.

Alternatively, could fuel be *much* cheaper at the stop?

steve64

That's a serious over simplification.
I'm not taking the time to research the weather at all airports involved, but this soooo sounds like a fuel issue that's being caused by a secondary issue with weather and/or the fact this is TGU we're talking about.

As MSPeconomist theorized, it could be as simple as a fuel shortage (or contamination/etc) at TGU.

Or...
The fact that the scheduled flight distance is well within the range of the aircraft is usually irrelevant in "day of" flight planning. After all, the aircraft is the one scheduled to fly the route. But to legally dispatch a flight, the airline doesn't simply have to ensure there's enough fuel on-board to fly to destination. They have to (and this is still an over simplification) have enough fuel to fly an approach to a runway at the destination, execute a "missed approach", then fly to an alternate destination. The designated "alternate" can't be any airport ... it has to be an airport where the weather forecasts at arrival are above certain minimums. In other words, there has to be enough fuel on that plane that the airline knows they can find somewhere to land, irrelevant of the weather. Throw in bad weather across the southeast USA, now DL and AA are hosed with extra fuel required to dispatch flights to ATL/MIA.

So now the airline has enough fuel on the plane to meet the "alternate" requirements. At takeoff, is the plane now too heavy with all the fuel? For most planes and airports, especially the flight length of TGU to ATL/MIA, the answer is an easy "yes". But operations at TGU are never easy. The airport sits in a "bowl" surrounded by mountains. The airline must ensure the plane is light enough that if one engine were to fail close to liftoff (more technical .. beyond the point where the plane can still stop on the runway) and still clear the mountains with a margin of 2000 feet.

Range is is least concern. They gotta be light enough not to hit anything on takeoff, yet have enough (heavy) fuel on-board to know they can land somewhere/anywhere with decent weather.

UA still showing normal operation to IAH is irrelevant to what DL or AA are doing.
If IAH weather forecast is great, then UA's alternate is probably HOU.
If the southeast is socked in, the alternate for ATL and MIA might be ... IAH.
Such alternates do happen. In my years at AA Ops, some I can always remember are:
DFW to Miami ... alternate Savannah
DFW to Toronto ... alternate Nashville
DFW to Cleveland ... alternate DFW
Now we're talking some serious, legally required fuel loads on flights that should be well within the plane's "range".

jm6886

Thanks everyone for the input- I appreciate your time. I look forward to seeing any additional perspectives that may come along!

tvtd

I’ve flown into and out of TGU before. The landing and takeoff is a blast because the patterns are through the mountains and the runway is ridiculously short. It’s one of those takeoffs where the engines spin up prior to releasing the brake. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in order to get off the ground, a partial fuel load is all that can be taken.

mglvrug

I've never known any airport or airline to have a "rule shortage."

tvtd

I see what you did there. Five interwebs for you. :-:

MikeNYC1

Like steve64 said, there are a lot of factors. Could be a density altitude issue, where due to the airport's elevation combined with ambient temperature, the aircraft wouldn't have adequate performance margins.

In addition to "missed approach" fuel issues, they need to have a light enough load to comply with single engine climb performance. Since TGU's in a mountainous region, the aircraft must be able to lose an engine after V1 (go/no go decision, right before takeoff rotation) and still have enough performance to climb over terrain with a safety margin. This would be directly affected by temperature and passenger load.

MSPeconomist

WOW, autocorrect at work again.

Fixed it.