Yesterday's LHR - MIA Offloading Pax due to Weight

Saw VS5 yesterday departed without 5 revenue pax due to the aircraft being overweight. There were still 25 seats free and they were also selling miles seats in Y and PE right up to departure. I guess Hurricane Florence and a lumbering A330 needing more fuel for a longer route to MIA was the reason.
A bit embarrassing though having to ask 5 pax to get off after everyone had boarded! Would have thought they'd had known this before everyone had checked in or even boarded.

Detailed ATC routings are decided last minute and I guess diversions to avoid Florence would also not be decided until late on in route planning so I'm not surprised that this seemed to be a last minute rush as far as external viewers are concerned.

And they have no idea about the weight of luggage until everyone has checked in as that also feeds into the fuel calculations

Would it not have been better to have delayed some luggage for a day rather than offloading passengers right at the last minute?

If I was on my way home it wouldn’t really be a major problem for me if my case arrived a day later.

[mitchja]

If they where off-loading pax, they would have to off-load their baggage anyway as bags cannot travel without pax (which would also be unavoidable if they just off-loaded bags but left the pax onboard).

Guess it also depends on the cargo manifest as well, which I believe is often pretty large on the MIA route.

Isn’t it the case that bags frequently travel without passengers? As anyone that has had their bag not arrive knows only too well. The bags then have to travel on different flights to be delivered. The idea that a bag can only travel on the same flight as a passenger is wrong.

Delta sent my bag a weird routing last year. My bag missed my flight from MCO-JFK so flew via Atlanta getting to LHR 30 mins behind me so it can be done