worldclubber

As I said above, it depends on the plane and the route. On a two-holer in ETOPS conditions, the APU is not MELable.

On an A380 from FRA to SIN, the APUs is almost completely unnecessary.

worldclubber

That's what I said: it depends.

You probably meant "without", then I fully agree.

PS: nobody mentioned Sully.

nancypants

hugolover

Oh, without APU on US1549 it would have crashed and burned? The RAT wouldn't have managed?

At least you also had the rafts on the A380!

worldclubber

So the main issue seem to be that they shouldn't have boarded pax so early, if they knew about the delay.

The APU wouldn't have helped them on the ground. Surprises me that an airport such as SIN has weak ground a/c for planes.

chris63

PAX_fips

Absolutely baffled that APU isn't on the MEL.

nancypants

worldclubber

Not sure SIN would have let them use the APU. But he needed an excuse ...

I kind of understand both sides: they probably should have sent people back into the terminal but feared they would miss their (late) slot. Not a great situation. Hope nobody was seriously harmed.

oliver2002

Sometimes you can only get the final confirmation to a slot over the very congested AfPak or Erbil airspace when you are ready to push back and request the engine startup time from ATC. It usually makes sense to board the passengers and be ready to push back, especially when you are talking about 400+ pax that could potentially be all over the very nice Changi terminal(s).

chris63

chris63

drvannostren

I don't think the pilot is blaming SIN for LH maintenance issues. He is however accusing them of having insufficient PCA. I work at YVR, we don't use PCA THAT much during the year and the only 380 we get is BA, who doesn't use it, so I can't speak to its ability to cool an aircraft that size.

I don't wanna speak out of turn, but APUs are left "broken" constantly. I'm not sure if it's airline by airline, or aircraft type by aircraft type. We do airstarts on 737s and ERJs all the time. But doing an airstart on a 777 happens once a year or once every handful of months. Honestly, I wish pilots wouldn't mention it, with most people's lack of knowledge about aircrafts, saying anything is wrong just causes confusion/panic.

chris63

drvannostren

Sadly, they run the APU. At YVR a while back no one used PCA, for YEARS not a single WS plane ever took PCA. Air Canada has always done their own thing. They're odd though, in fact there's times where the PCA on the gate works, but they use their portable unit out of convenience (I suppose).

BA is on the ground for just under 2 hours, they don't take PCA, CX same, some of the US carriers will try and get that PCA regardless of turn time. A huge pain since it takes 1 person away for like a solid 5-10 minutes between hooking up and taking down. The longer turns all take it, BR, CI, MU, PR etc.