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Old 11th January 2017, 05:22 PM
Radi K Radi K is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2008
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There will be days where due to strong headwinds and bad weather in Adelaide that a techstop or heavily reduced payload will be required. That being said, those day's aren't overly common. The problem with the schedule is that due to curfew, tech-stop options will be limited if they want to make it in/out on time. Still there is plenty of good options, BNE & SYD in the first instance (company ports).

That assumes on that given day up to three things happen
1. High Payload (probably capped by commercial anyway)
2. Strong headwinds
3. Bad weather in Adelaide requiring a Melbourne (or other) alternate.

Statistically that is a low occurrence and it's a risk any airline takes. It's not unusual for the tiger 737s to stop in DRW for gas on the way to DPS during school holidays.

Naturally there are Point of No Return options, no alternate options and also re-clearance in-flight options available to the crew and the dispatchers.

I will make the point; Fiji Airways already operates some of their 738s on very long routes thus have extensive pacific experience (HNL, MEL etc). The runways at ADL and NAN are long and don't have an performance limitations on them. Also- Fiji airways operates user preferred routes across the pacific so that will have it's advantages over fixed routes in avoiding headwinds and maximizing tailwinds.

Going back to Nadi won't see many issues. Suva is used as a primary airport for the 737 by Fiji Airways and their crew go into there without issue. It will have a tailwind and I doubt will ever be payload limited unless you get very bad weather in Fiji.

The other major 737 operator flying into NAN's major issue was on a sunday when Tonga was closed and you couldn't use it as an alternate. This reduced payload.

I agree the 700 is a better option for going TO ADL but you can fill an -800 coming home. Go on them for giving it a go... hopefully it works out.
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