Tom in NO From United States of America, joined Nov 1999, 7194 posts, RR: 40 Posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 15 hours ago) and read 2235 times:
I was coming back to my office from the terminal, and noticed one of WN's wingletted 737's arrive. N711HK (old paint job). No bags came off or on, only fuel and the catering. I took a few pics of it, then watched it go, and caught it on the scanner. He was operating flight 269.
Came back into the office, and checked the flight tracker, and found out he was going to JAN (Jackson, MS). Which poses my question for the WN folks: WN 269 operates PHX-HOU-JAN-MDW. Why did he overfly HOU and land here? I'm thinking HOU weather. Can anyone confirm this? Thanks.
Tom at MSY
"The criminal ineptitude makes you furious"-Bruce Springsteen, after seeing firsthand the damage from Hurricane Katrina
RiverVisualNYC From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 930 posts, RR: 3 Reply 2, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 14 hours ago) and read 2163 times:
Forgive my ignorance because I don't fly Southwest, but is this sort of thing common for them? That they would bypass HOU because of weather and go to MSY, but then instead of getting their pax to HOU continue on to JAN? Would the HOU pax also have to go on to MDW?
InnocuousFox From United States of America, joined Dec 2003, 2805 posts, RR: 16 Reply 3, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 14 hours ago) and read 2134 times:
How do we know he didn't go to HOU and stopped between HOU and JAN instead?
Dave Mark - Intrinsic Algorithm - Reducing the world to mathematical equations!
Tom in NO From United States of America, joined Nov 1999, 7194 posts, RR: 40 Reply 4, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 14 hours ago) and read 2045 times:
InnocuousFox:
The flight tracker had the entire flight history. Trust me, he flew PHX-MSY, then from here to JAN.
Tom at MSY
"The criminal ineptitude makes you furious"-Bruce Springsteen, after seeing firsthand the damage from Hurricane Katrina
Groundstop From United States of America, joined Jun 2003, 611 posts, RR: 6 Reply 5, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 13 hours ago) and read 2020 times:
The reason was weather. A few hours ago, around Noon eastern, both IAH and HOU were taking lengthy arrival delays due to TSTMS. So, I'm guessing that's the reason.
RiverVisualNYC From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 930 posts, RR: 3 Reply 6, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 13 hours ago) and read 1990 times:
You get what you pay for! Maybe Southwest should advertise aerial tours of the US...Hope the HOU pax got an extra bag of peanuts for their trouble...
Groundstop From United States of America, joined Jun 2003, 611 posts, RR: 6 Reply 7, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 13 hours ago) and read 1959 times:
Forgot to add, we also diverted a flight away from HOU this morning. TRS293 diverted to DFW due to the weather in HOU. It's on its way to HOU now and coming back mighty late as 294.
Ssides From United States of America, joined Feb 2001, 4059 posts, RR: 23 Reply 8, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 13 hours ago) and read 1944 times:
Perhaps they let the HOU pax off at MSY and let them catch an MSY-HOU flight? Depending on the number of HOU pax, that seems like a sensible thing to do. Although my bet is that most of the pax were bound for HOU; I doubt the PHX-JAN market is all that large, and I doubt anyone would take the three-stop flight from PHX to MDW.
InnocuousFox From United States of America, joined Dec 2003, 2805 posts, RR: 16 Reply 9, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 13 hours ago) and read 1925 times:
"You get what you pay for! Maybe Southwest should advertise aerial tours of the US..."
That's just crap. Don't crack on them because they're an LCC... I'm sure it cost them far more to have a/c out of sequence and passengers out of ittinerary.
I would rather get diverted to MSY, end up in JAN and take a connection back to HOU than bounce around in storms for a hour and be forced to make a dangerous approach at HOU just because it's more convenient.
Dave Mark - Intrinsic Algorithm - Reducing the world to mathematical equations!
RiverVisualNYC From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 930 posts, RR: 3 Reply 10, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 13 hours ago) and read 1924 times:
Tom says no bags came off, so if the HOU pax got off in MSY, their luggage certainly didn't!!!
Tom in NO From United States of America, joined Nov 1999, 7194 posts, RR: 40 Reply 11, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 13 hours ago) and read 1892 times:
I wondered about off-loading HOU-bound pax myself at the time, but note one of my original comments: "No bags came off or on" (unless, of course, WN decided to haul the HOU-bound bags all over the southern US, but not the pax.....which, I think, we all would tend to doubt).
Tom at MSY
"The criminal ineptitude makes you furious"-Bruce Springsteen, after seeing firsthand the damage from Hurricane Katrina
BigB From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 593 posts, RR: 3 Reply 12, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 13 hours ago) and read 1746 times:
River, maybe there wasn't any HOU bound folks on that plane. You wasn't there to see the plane arrive in MSY.
RiverVisualNYC From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 930 posts, RR: 3 Reply 13, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 12 hours ago) and read 1741 times:
BigB- interesting point, not being familiar with Southwest, do they often skip a scheduled destination if all the pax onboard are booked on to the second or third stop?
Goingboeing From United States of America, joined Dec 1999, 4875 posts, RR: 19 Reply 14, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 12 hours ago) and read 1709 times:
River...you ever been on a flight that landed in a thunderstorm? Would you rather have them divert? And since you don't fly SWA very often, consider this, if the flight got into MSY around 11:00 a.m., Southwest has flights to Houston at 11:20, 12:45, 1:20, 2:10, 2:50, 4:00, 4:35, 5:10, 6:25, 7:10, 8:10, 9:10, and 10:15. In other words, they most likely were able to accomodate the HOU passengers more quickly out of MSY, and still get the aircraft to JAN pretty much on schedule.
RiverVisualNYC From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 930 posts, RR: 3 Reply 15, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 12 hours ago) and read 1684 times:
Yes, I have been diverted, but usually I have been allowed to continue to my destination on the same or another aircraft when the weather improves...I have never been flown on to yet a second city that is also not my destination....I don't believe anyone said here that passengers disembarked in MSY....
Goingboeing From United States of America, joined Dec 1999, 4875 posts, RR: 19 Reply 16, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 12 hours ago) and read 1626 times:
Another possiblity is that they took the HOU passengers to JAN, had them deplane there and flew them back to HOU on the 3:00 flight.
InnocuousFox From United States of America, joined Dec 2003, 2805 posts, RR: 16 Reply 17, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 12 hours ago) and read 1602 times:
"In other words, they most likely were able to accomodate the HOU passengers more quickly out of MSY"
Unless, of course, they had plans of rebooking all the non-HOU pax to their FINAL destinations from flights out of JAN? What percentage of those people were REALLY going to Houston? Let's face it... as long as they get to their FINAL destination, they likely don't care WHERE they change planes. Perhaps JAN was more suitable for all the OTHER connections.
Dave Mark - Intrinsic Algorithm - Reducing the world to mathematical equations!
Mikesairways From United States of America, joined Oct 2003, 635 posts, RR: 0 Reply 18, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 12 hours ago) and read 1565 times:
Is it possible that they knew about the over-fly prior to take off and didn't take any HOU bound pax? I've seen that done many times before on an over fly. It is possible MSY was just a fuel stop?
The red zone is for the immediate loading and unloading of passengers only, there is no stopping in the white zone...(Ai
Goingboeing From United States of America, joined Dec 1999, 4875 posts, RR: 19 Reply 19, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 12 hours ago) and read 1549 times:
Anything is possible. The Southwest website shows "NA" for the entire trip.
RiverVisualNYC From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 930 posts, RR: 3 Reply 20, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 12 hours ago) and read 1525 times:
"NA" indeed, sure it wasn't a charter or something?
Then again, I was once on the Southwest website checking some fares and got a message that said "The Availability System is Currently Unavailable"!!!!
OPNLguy From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 21, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 4 days 11 hours ago) and read 1438 times:
>>>You get what you pay for!
They sure did--a flight that was operated safely, and ended up diverting due to WX in the HOU area. A "legacy" airline would have operated just as safely.
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