Typhoon Interference
 

As if strike related delays weren't enough to think about...

I've booked NW70, TPE-KIX-DTW, for this thursday. Typhoon Mawar has scheduled it's visit for Japan to occur right over Osaka at about the same time.

Does anyone have any experience with how NW would handle this? I called NW and they said if a typhoon would affect any portion of the flight, they would probably cancel the entire flight. It would make more sense to me to cancel the stop at KIX and fly TPE-DTW direct. I'd think they'd need the aircraft in TPE for the next flight.

Of course, I don't know how they accomodate those KIX-DTW passengers and I'm probably not thinking of a lot of other details as well.

Has anyone had this happen on this flight or a similar situation that can comment?

Unless it's a super strong Typhoon, I doubt Northwest would cancel the flight. I've flown flights out of Tokyo Narita and had flight fly as scheduled even with the Typhoon impacting Tokyo. At the time of my departure, the rain was light despite the high winds. It was probably near category 1 but was not a direct hit.

If there is any impact, I think it would only be impacted by flight delay or even a landing in Tokyo Narita or Nagoya instead. It's passengers possibly could be transferred in Tokyo but I would think that flight load is fairly full this time around so it would eventually make its way to KIX with its passengers. I highly doubt that it would make the TPE-DTW trip without making the stop in KIX. TPE-KIX-DTW flight will have significant amount of passengers that will be unloading/boarding in KIX.

Jiburi

Unless the flight gets diverted to TPE due to fuel issues and other airports getting congested (but I think the closest non-jpn airport to KIX is PUS but I could be wrong) it won't just overshoot KIX, that's almost a near certain.

If the flight takes off and it verywell may and had to be diverted, probably would land in NRT, but the thing is, a lot can change from the time the plane taxes off to the 14hrs later when it's scheduled to arrive so KIX control may verywell let the plane take off, but the hurricane can be anywhere when it arrives.

I was at Narita last year during a Typhoon. There were lots of delays, but we did finally take off. I think it really depends on the route of the Typhoon and how long it's going to affect the airport.

It's the other direction. TPE->KIX. A little under three hours.

The current tracking shows it a bit west of KIX. But you're right... Who knows where this storm will be when we actually try to land.

typhoon
 

In July I flew NW from MSP-NRT as typhoon was approaching Tokyo. My connecting flight to Singapore left early, so I missed my connection. NW booked me on Singapore Airlines the following morning and paid for deluxe hotel and dinner. Not too bad, since I was on an award ticket. Good luck!! :p

I do believe this case is a somewhat unique problem..... This time there are two typhoons proceeding toward Japan running parrallel with each other. Looks like one will hit Osaka about the time the other hits Tokyo....

But....maybe the one heading for Osaka will veer off for Korea.

I would wager money the flight will depart. Many inexpensive mechanics are in the Asian part of the world.

Actually, Tropical Storm 12W has already begun its recurve and isn't expected to make landfall, so I guess Narita would be an option. But since they're only a couple of hours away, I'd think they would just cancel or delay.

I still think it makes more sense to overfly KIX and go straight to DTW. Then they have the equipment is where it's supposed to be for the next flight.

The typhoon heading for Osaka and Kyoto, now is slowing down so I may just get out before it makes landfall. Of course, I don't know when (or if) they'll close the airport. KIX is supposed to be earthquake an typhoon proof. Part of me wanted to spend the typhoon there...

This doesn't involve me, but....
 

... I went to a party not too long ago where one guest described a harrowing flight from Japan to Taiwan on Northwest during a typoon. He said Northwest offered passengers the option of staying in Japan and flying the next day or going on that evening's flight. This guy chose to fly that evening. Some of the caveats were there would be no service of any kind on the flight and no trips to the restroom. He described the flight as "very rough" and that a lot people were vomiting. This was maybe ten years ago, so maybe NWA has changed their policy on flying during typhoons.

I am flying DTW-NRT on NW 25 on Thursday (8/25), I hope. It seems like the typhoon is currently on-track toward KIX, but NRT is not that far away (for a typhoon course change, that is). I checked the NW Japan site and there was no information about weather waivers etc. It generally seems that it takes a lot for a Trans-Pacific flight to get canceled as the fairly full loads will cause a cascade of reaccomodation problems. (Not to mention that I am flying on the old M-fare upgrade with miles to/from NRT - and I would be worried about not being reaccomodated in Business if there was a cancellation).

That's assuming that the TPE-KIX aircraft is the same one used on the KIX-DTW flight....last time I flew this, it was a 757 on the TPE portion transferring to a 747 for the trans-Pacific flight even though it is the same number....besides, what are they going to do with those getting of at KIX? I'd be more than ticked to end up in DTW....and well US Customs would have NW's behind for flying Taiwanese that don't have visas to enter the US....I believe it's like a $10,000 fine per instance.

NW 69 and 70 are 744's all the way to TPE now... here's a web site that I use to check on typhoons in the asia pacific area...

Typhoon Tracker

KIX may be safe, but they have closed the bridge connecting the mainland to KIX a number of times. STUCK....on an island

Very Nice!
Thanks for the link.
Nice satellite weather view on the same site:


Asia Weather-Satellite View


any other favorites?

Flying in Hurricane / Tropical Storm conditions
 

While not directly related to this Typhoon, I took a flight from TPA to IAH the same day a strong category I (weak category II) hurricane made landfall around the Louisiana/Texas coastline.

It hit the coastline in the morning and then went down to a borderline category I / Tropical Storm levels at the time of my flight departure. At the gate they weren't sure if my flight was a go or not, but it did go and we kept at an altitude of about 39k.

The flight was quite choppy and bumpy each time we would hit one of the "bands" - which were well defined & interesting to see by air - and it was a bit turbulant going into IAH. I would say the turbulance never got any worse than a couple bouts of borderline light/moderate turbulance (on the light side of moderate by "true definition") as we passed through the bands. We had a F-A-S-T drink service upon departure from TPA and then a quick clean-up. Once we did hit the turbulance the crew was strapped in for the remainder of the flight. The tubulance was enough to shake-up some pax; personally, I was expecting it to be worse, as I've flown through some true moderate to severe turbulance, once which required an aircraft to undergo maintanance checks upon arrival.

I had a long connection at IAH, during that time the storm was downgraded to a tropical depression. No problems on connection.

TheZipper: Thanks for the Typhoon tracking tool.

In closing, it's impressive what aircraft can fly though/over -- I honestly was expecting a no-go that day, the tubulance was much less than expected and at IAH there were very few cancellations and a handful of delayed flights on both the arrivals and departures board.

SDF_Traveler

I'm in a NRT airport hotel now (almost 8 am) after having arrived here in NRT yesterday evening. The typhoon is the top story on all the news channels.

According to the news right now, the typhoon is due to reach landfall around or to the east of Nagoya (which itself is east of Osaka) this afternoon, and then curve around to the right to hit Tokyo. As this is a slow moving typhoon, the news says that we can expect to have about 15 hours of high wind and rain (from this afternoon to tomorrow morning). The news further reports that several domestic flights have already been cancelled, and that more cancellations and delays can be expected (depending on the path the typhoon takes).

Just my 2 cents... I don't think they would skip TPE-KIX and fly directly TPE-DTW. There are many people that actually fly the TPE-KIX segment and other that fly the KIX-DTW segment.

Also, about a month ago, there was a serious typhoon in TPE and NW cancelled flight NW 70 (I think the whole airport was closed). Not sure what happened to the KIX-DTW portion.

The way things are looking at the moment operations at NRT should be fairly normal until maybe 9pm. After that the higher winds should start and are expected to last well into tomorrow morning with gusts up to 70-85 kts. This could be a problem for the early morning arrivals from Europe. At the moment we are just experiencing heavy rain with fairly moderate winds at 8kts.

KIX should be well clear of the typhoon and in fact they are now reporting 20kt winds, which is probably about as bad as it will get. Nagoya is reporting similar winds, that is expected to deterioriate fairly quickly.

I guess for flights from the US to KIX, the question is going to be how to route around the weather system in such a away as to avoid the bad turbulence. I left NRT a day after a typhoon last year on a LH 747 to FRA. About one hour after departure we crossed the tail-end of the typhoon and it really was no fun, not even for this seasoned flyer..... :(

We did have a little turbulence as we neared Japan on the PDX-NRT route yesterday. Nothing really bad though.

My feeling is that airlines will usually try to fly, if at all possible, in these situations. A few years ago on a west coast-NRT flight as a typhoon was hitting Japan, they didn't cancel the flight, but they did lighten the load by bumping (involuntarily) a sizeable number of passengers.

Hope your are not referring to the Narita Radisson as deluxe? Just curious

We flew. A tiny bit of turbulence coming into KIX. And we took the northern route from KIX toi DTW to avoid turbulence from the storm, according to the pilot. This made us a little late into DTW.

What I realized during the flight is why they don't overfly KIX in these situations. The long-haul crew arrives at KIX and flies KIX-DTW. I remember on the outbound flight we changed crew from KIX->TPE.

TheZipper: Thanks for the link. I had been using the US Navy's site and it doesn't seem to work out of the US. If I VPN'd into my office network, I'd get it but not from the hotel. Anyway, thanks!