Scarlet Lady Strange Routing

Now Pete's marvellous new aircraft database is operational, I noticed that Scarlet Lady had a very interesting routing in February:

10 Feb Sydney to Hong Kong doing the VS201
11 Feb Hong Kong to Manila - presumably for a heavy check (did that mean another A346 deadheaded to HKG to do the return to London?)
24 Feb Manila to London
24 Feb London to Copenhagen (although the database says Manila to Copenhagen???)
24 Feb Copenhagen to Helsinki
24 Feb Helsinki to London

Wonder if this is correct (odd for it not to be) but wonder what the Lady was en route to and from in the frozen tundra?

[Oh, first ]

[Scrooge]

What the heck, ok the Manila part I can understand, the sounds like a C check, but up into Scandinavia, the only thing I can think off is a charter.

Looking at the times, this seems to be 3 different flightplans:
MNL-LHR
MNL-CPH-LHR
MNL-HEL-LHR

Long flight ~6000nm ....but should still be in range particularly if lightly loaded.

[Pete]

The data should be accurate, as it comes from Virgin themselves - but what it was doing, I have no idea ;-)

[Scrooge]

CPN/HEl could be in there as diversion airports just in case fuel becomes an issue I guess.

CPN/HEl could be in there as diversion airports just in case fuel becomes an issue I guess.

Could be alternate pitstops for fuel top up - they are both en-route.

I have seen this happen on flightstats - they enter a route then get a weather update and enter another.

[Scrooge]

With a weather alternate though, wouldn't they go for something closer to home, say AMS ?

Likely route would be over Finland.
AMS well south - almost as far as LHR if en-route.

I'm guessing that this was an re-clearance in flight.

Basically, an aircraft normally leaves it's origin with enough fuel to get to it's destination, plus some extra (taxi fuel, holding, divert, contingency, etc).

But you can't always do that. In the situation where either because of fuel tank capacity, take-off weight restrictions, or payload requirements (i.e. you're operationally preferring payload over fuel), you can't take what you want (or are legally required to carry) as your destination fuel, plus your diversion airport fuel, plus holding fuel, plus reserve.

So, you have to take less fuel than is legally required. You know that it's enough to get you to your destination without a fuel stop, but your reserve isn't everything it needs to be.

Therefore, to comply with regulations, you file to a destination short of your final destination, in this case HEL or CPH (which you can get to with full reserves), but you know you're taking fuel for LHR, assuming everything goes well fuel-wise.

There is a point en-route where you decide if you are able to go all the way through to final destination, called a re-clearance point.

At the re-clearance point, if you have enough fuel to fly from the re-clearance point to your destination, plus holding, plus divert, plus reserve, based on the conditions at the destination, then you are re-cleared to your destination.

If you have used more fuel than you anticipated and don't have enough fuel to to give you the required safety margins, then you land and uplift more fuel.

There's a nice wikipedia article which describes this, but it's in German.

Hope this helps.

Mike

[Bazz]

Thanks Mike, that makes sense.

Mike, appreciate the reply, thank you.

So, 346s have maintenance in Manila (isn't that a Lufthansa facility?) and I believe the 747s are 'serviced' by KLM in Amsterdam. Do the 343s also go to Manila or elsewhere?

343's also go to Manila I believe, at least when I was looking at G-VAIR's routes lately, MNL was one of her destinations.

It wasn't always that way, IIRC Dublin used to be used. It is quite common for somewhere far away to be used for Mx, JAL use Victorville in the USA (or did until very recently) and IIRC DL use HKG for their 767s.

Re-painting has been done in the past at Filton in Bristol and more recently out in the States.

Yes, the Manila facility is run by Lufthansa Technik, and that's where the Airbus fleet seems to go for heavy maint.

The Dublin work mostly seemed to be IFE and interiors, rather than airframe, which in the case of the 744 fleet has been done in Amsterdam by KLM E&M. Given that SRT in DUB is either downsizing or closing entirely, I guess the interior work will go elsewhere.

Do we know where the LHR 744s went for their upper deck economy conversions?

One of the LGW fleet was recently at LH Technik in FRA for attention - I think some sort of urgent repair - but it seems that LH are winning more work from VS these days.

Paint for VS has mostly been done in Amsterdam by KLM (the 744s and the 343s have mostly been painted there), with HOT's recent paint being done at Filton.

Mike

According to the new All Flights tool, just divine (!), Queen of the Skies, G-VEIL is currently heading for Manila. Must look in a week or two for where she heads back to.

Do we know where the LHR 744s went for their upper deck economy conversions?

G-VFAB (the only 744 refitted at the moment) was refitted at Gatwick I believe.

BTW. I can't wait to get a nice little Manila on my roster!

[Darren Wheeler]

Do we know where the LHR 744s went for their upper deck economy conversions?

G-VFAB (the only 744 refitted at the moment) was refitted at Gatwick I believe.

BTW. I can't wait to get a nice little Manila on my roster!

An envelope?

theres a picture here

http://jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=6787239&nseq=1

theres a picture here

http://jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=6787239&nseq=1" target="_blank

Ooh snowy! Thanks for the link!