I had a similar experience on April 4 when QF16 was diverted to Noumea. We were told there was bad weather in Brisbane and that there wasn’t enough fuel for a divert to Sydney. So, about an hour out of Brisvegas we turned around and head for New Caledonia.

What followed was comedy bordering on farce. Because we beat the day’s first scheduled arrival (an ANZ A320) in by a good hour or so we had to wait for the ground crew to arrive. When they did arrive it was discovered that they spoke French (who would have thought that in a FRENCH Pacific territory?). Then, after the language barrier had been overcome, apparently by a member of the cabin crew who spoke German, the fuel had to be tested.

The result was that what had been portrayed by the crew as a short delay on the ground ballooned out to around 3 hours and I was starting to contemplate the possibility of an enforced stopover in New Caledonia. Luckily (?), that didn’t happen and when we finally arrived in Brisbane (around 5 hours late) people expressed surprise that we diverted because ‘it wasn’t bad here this morning’. Still it was a nice touch that the arrival monitors showed our flight arriving from LAX and Noumea.

I agree with Ken that there probably was enough fuel for us to divert to Sydney, just not enough for us to go anywhere else if there was a problem when we got there but, like him, I’m not sure how that could be explained to a plane full of tired and irritated people. Something which did concern me, though, was that the cabin crew had to explain a couple of times why they weren’t doing a drinks trolley service while we were refueling.

I do wonder, though, what diversion ports were selected in case some non-met issue had closed BNE once we were airborne again. When we got to Brisbane I asked one of the cabin crew how close the flight crew had come to exceeding their hours and she replied, ‘a matter of minutes’ and went on to say that the cabin crew had started planning for an overnight stay in Noumea. Assuming this ruled Sydeny out then we would have been left with Amberley or Coolangatta. While either would obviously be cheaper than Noumea to have to retrieve a 747-400 from, I wonder what sort of hit the Qantas image would have taken.

As an aside, given that Qantas flies its own aircraft into Noumea, why would they have insisted on testing the fuel?

The Newark service is flown by an amazing variety of routes depending on the conditions, more so perhaps than any other long haul route. Eastbound for example it sometimes closely follows just to the north a typical North Atlantic route to say Edinburgh but then just keeps going to exploit the winds of the day to continue to Changi the longest way, actually covering comparable distances to London-Sydney non-stop. At other times it would fly directly over the north pole and come down through central Asia, then for some reason passing near Wuhai before cutting back to Singapore. In terms of range/payload considerations there is nothing else like it, and it survived as a daily for four and half years before loosing one frequency purely on the strength of the corporate market between two major finance centres. Both of which are now in recession, hence my hunch that this cannot go on at current frequencies if at all for much longer.

But your point about the remoteness of the far southern routes is right there with a number of expert contacts I have heard talk about those routes. In fact it is not uncommon to question whether they should be flown at all, although in the 747-400 era, Qantas has unmatched experience in those operations, followed by LAN-Chile’s current A340 operation. In the early days both LAN Chile and Aerolineas tried 707s multi-stop, including in the former case via Easter Island and Papeete at one stage. Qantas did make some 707 flights, including as route proving 707 non-stop to Santiago from Sydney but the commercial numbers didn’t add up. When the 747-200 matured a bit in terms of engine reliability and power it was used on the Buenos Aires route via Rio Gallegos and Auckland, taking over from earlier efforts by the Argentine carrier.

In recent weeks Qantas 744s have been spotted making the initial flight to JNB by going almost directly south over Hobart to avoid initial strong westerlies for the lesser price of a longer routing.

There were also rumours a few months back that Qantas would use A380s on the JNB route in the near future. I think if true that will now be the not so near future. Early in 2007 an Airbus A380 demonstrator did a high weight takeoff from JNB, an interesting airport at the best of times, and then flew for 16 hours via a pass over the true South Pole to arrive in Sydney with some impressive fuel/payload figures for a mission much longer than the standard routing, so I suspect that started a bit of lateral thinking at Qantas. The far southern routes to South America and South Africa are really no place for the best big twins even if ETOPS 330 minutes was attained. The proposed LROPS standards for all jets would again give operators reason to ask ‘do we really need to do this’ as they set incredibly onerous technical standards.

The actual Airbus test flights in that ‘bi-polar’ series mimicked the Pan Am record breaking flight made in the late 70s using a 747 SP. The difference however was that the SP, which was a jet I really liked, required its own oil field when fuel per passenger per just about any long haul mission was calculated.

Is Newark/Changi/Newar really that demanding, especially as there are more en route and terminal alternates than you’d find anywhere? Sydney to BA and return as well as Sydney to J’burg and return would surely be more challenging as they route a long way south and some hours (at their furthrest point south) from anything that resembles a suitable airport!

As for SQ and their token cancellations, I wonder if the Singaporeans are involved in a face-saving exercise, especaiily as both the US and Singapore are economic basket cases?

Lastly, are you sure it was Aerolineas Argentinas with their B707 over lonely South Pacific waters? My somewhat rusty memory tells me that it was Lan-Chile.

I’m glad you are in the discussion, in that what experiences readers report may often have a reasonable explanation, although as you point out communications weren’t exactly perfect.

These experiences may lead to others providing insights into the whys and hows of service issues.

The fuel/payload issues are always interesting too. The A345 between Singapore and Newark at all times has sufficient fuel for a standard diversion, even 19 hours later close to either airport, as is the legal operational requirement. It is operationally an extraordinarily demanding route, although I’d nominate Sydney-Buenos Aires as a very close runner up given the lack of alternates along much of the route, especially westbound where Aerolineas Argentinas used to do ‘courageous’ things with a 707 between Rio Gallegos and Auckland including deep Antarctic incursions to avoid headwinds. Qantas now does this route non-stop in a 744-ER, with precision planning rather than courage. With its marathon Newark flight SQ overcomes the payload restrictions by having only 98 business class seats, and to my amazement, despite the financial crisis, it hasn’t yet made more than token frequency reductions. I have a hunch this may change any day.

You’re a bit harsh on Qantas and its flight diverting to Brsiabane ‘due to fog in Sydney’. I suspect that the crew could have advised the passengers in a better way but owing to the technical nature of met forecats and the need to have alternate fuel, there is really noot a simple explanation. The flight almost certainly had sufficient fuel for Sydney but a probability of fog during the period of its arrival Sydney meant that the flight had to carry an alternate or divert. As San Fran to Sydney is one of the longest sectors in the world, it’s really not possible to carry alternate fuel at all times AND carry a viable payload, On most occasions, the non-stop operations succeed but there are and will be some occasions when, due to either unforecast adverse en route conditions or a late change to a terminal forecast that results in a need to carry an alternate, things turn pear-shaped.