For what then? 3 medicals in a row? :cool: AA121 stopped last 3 days as shown above for "winds"
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAL121
Jan.2 Bangor
Jan.3 Bangor
Jan.4 Gander

Today's stop looked planned from when the flight took off

US799 AMS-PHL, US751 BRU-PHL, AA211 MAN-JFK, AA55 MAN-ORD also made a visit to Gander today (and some on multiple days recently), so its hardly a unique United issue with TATL 757s

High altitude winds, jet stream related

Compare these to the flight paths -- typical Dec/Jan patterns
Weather Model - North Atlantic Jet Stream Wind
North Atlantic Jet Stream Forecasts

And the trend in the jet stream will probably continue for at least the next few weeks without letting up.

But its only 3100 miles and heathrow made it. This is the first time i've seen a flight from Ireland divert for fuel.

EWR weather has been terrible the last two days. That means the flight plan needs an alternate airport with sufficient weather (inclusive of extra fuel to reach that alternate), as well as extra holding fuel. Plus the required 45 minutes (or whatever the number is) of fuel reserve you need when you land no matter what. Therefore, to be able to hold all that fuel, the 757-200 can either be payload restricted, or it can make a fuel stop somewhere en route.

While the winter jetstream and high altitude winds certainly is a huge factor, destination airport weather also plays a large part into the equation.

In the case of UA76 BFS-EWR today 1/4, it looks like they tried for EWR, were put into a hold (did one racetrack loop), and made the decision to divert to ALB because they were probably told by ATC that it would be a while due to the poor EWR weather.

Thanks, so really it diverted because of the weather and not the winds.

"Weather" is inclusive of winds. You mean the winds aloft over the North Atlantic? Correct, it looks like BFS-EWR diverted due to EWR weather. Visibility was low most of the day. Winds in the NYC area weren't too bad though.

I was in Berlin just before christmas and was told by a 1K agent that they were going to be putting a 767 on the TXL-EWR route because of the diversions (didn't say when). TXL is one of the longer routes, I think. I'm not sure his information was credible.

What's the reason? Strong headwinds?

EWR-TXL on the 767-300 is planned only for July this year, and is due to summer demand.

Yes the headwinds.

It has been turned into a 762 or 764 in the past during the winter because of a lot of diversions not sitting well with German aviation authorities.

The 763 is a summer demand change. Will be interesting to see if it stays that way as demand dwindles in the colder months.

It doesn't work.

You're still dumping more capacity onto the market when demand is low (during the winter season). With an unchanged demand curve, price falls :)

As far as stimulating demand goes ("offering a better - more competitive (inflight) - product"), just ask American how their More Room Throughout Coach experiment went. Most consumers are not willing to pay more for what they perceive as a heavily commoditized product.

1/5 again has a plethora of diversions:

UA55 (CDG-EWR)
UA69 (ARN-EWR)
UA75 (HAM-EWR)
UA121 (BCN-EWR)
UA125 (TXL-EWR)

Other longer 757 flights like UA39 (OSL-EWR) and UA63 (MAD-EWR) are going nonstop today as of now...

btw: Yesterday's (1/4) UA125 took a 2:50 delay at Gander due to "aircraft refueling difficulties" after only 50 minutes the day before.

Greetings - Dirk

Yes, but we are talking about UA, aren't we? ;)