Turbulence
 

60 minutes to landing in NRT at 37,000 feet we were being bounced hard enough that they had to seat all the FAs and stop breakfast. There were three planes ahead and behind us was requesting, and getting lower altitudes (perfectly smooth under FL340 according to a NW airplane slightly ahead on the same routing - thank you channel 9).

We ended up flying at this horrible altitude for another 20 minutes - my question is...is this some kind of fuel saving tactic? Isn't it better to have a smoother ride and burn more fuel at lower altitude?

Do you know there wasn't another plane under you? Those routes are generally so packed - notice everyone comes and goes at the same times - that there's seldom room to move planes around when they encounter turbulence. For the most part, UA pilots are among the first to ask for different altitudes at the first sign of bumps.

Since this seems a more generalized question than a UA-specific one, I am going to move this to TravelBuzz (where there have been many threads on the topic). Please continue to follow it there:

Chuck
aka cblaisd
Moderator, United

If you're talking about this past week, there was a cyclone in that area, so there was a lot of air movement as a result. Cyclones are like that. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...orum/smile.gif

Not really.. If it's just a *comfort* of flight thing, then probably not worth the effort to make a large altitude change, then a change back.. (this is assuming the altitude is available) *Safety* of flight is a different story.

I'm sure this was more a airspace availability issue than a fuel saving issue. Putting a packed 747 in heavy tubulence can create quite a risk for passanger injury, something no pilot desires. Such trans-oceanic routes are fairly narrow and with so many flights it's far more likely there simply wasn't airspace available. Also, (although it might not apply in this case due to your proximity to land), changing clearance in the middle of an trans-oceanic crossing can take a little while (it's not as simple as getting on the radio and requesting a new altitude).

-FlyerBeek