Ronaldsway Friday 12th October

[lodger]

Been a rather bleak day, driech and windy.
flybe (Stobart) and Aer Lingus (Stobart) ATRs stayed on the ground this morning due to adverse southerly "breezes", but such conditions did not prevent the LCY 7am rotation using Saab nor even Easyjet flying in from LPL after 8am.  Irony is that this afternoon's Bristol EZY was cxld due to condx at Bristol.

It is clear that the ATRs are not suitable for IoM routes when adverse weather prevails, which is part and parcel of operating here.  Dash-8s with their better design/criteria might well have operated today;  one hopes that flybe will be taking this fact into serious consideration when re-aligning their fleet operations next year.

[alexIOM]

Flybe are re-opening the base again from the end of March next year with Dash8's. These replacing the ATR 72's of Stobartair

www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news/68139-flybe-to-reopen-isle-of-man-base-in-early-2q19

[marquis]

Guys, I'm not sure this is the right place to be criticising airlines - lets face it they ALL have problems from time to time and I doubt Flybe will be any better ?? (Perhaps the IOM Forums would be a better place.)

Meanwhile - the Easyjet Belfast service was operated by A320 OE-ING - a first visit as such ex G-EZRS.

[marquis]

and as a matter of interest, flights were cancelled/delayed at Dublin, Belfast and Liverpool yesterday - even Ryanair diverted a Liverpool flight to Manchester - we had some pretty bad weather up around here ! Oh, and even Bristol had problems too.

[lodger]

Oct 13, 2018 9:25:50 GMT 1 marquis said:

Guys, I'm not sure this is the right place to be criticising airlines - lets face it they ALL have problems from time to time and I doubt Flybe will be any better ?? 

Agreed Marquis, this is not necessarily the right place to discuss individual operators per se.  I was merely commenting on the different types of AIRCRAFT and how they handle adverse weather condx, notably the ATR being quite sensitive to cross-winds due to its landing gear inner-positioning, versus Dash-8's wing configuration.  Ergo, horses for courses?

Thanks Alex for confirming changes of island's flybe service at the end of March, fingers crossed that the transition goes smoothly.

[marquis]

If you "google" crosswind limits you see:

ATR72 35kt
DHC8-400 36kt

thats per the relevant aircraft manuals on a dry runway, presumably it will be lower on a wet runway - not a big difference !