V Australia requests capacity on SYD-JNB EFF-Oct 09

[Montague S]

Originally Posted by Stuart Trevena

Hi All,

I know I keep saying this, but someone has to keep raising it.

Whay don't they ops through Melbourne, as we currently don't have a JNB flight, even though they operate over Melbourne and Geelong enoute to / from JNB??

It is rather silly for Melb. folk to fly to Sydney to board the aircraft, just to overfly Melbourne again a few hours later.

Stuart

probably because it costs more to land than ferrying the passengers to Sydney, I suspect that the Melbourne community of South African's wouldn't be as big to warrant the stop?.

[Marty H]

Originally Posted by Stuart Trevena

Hi All,

I know I keep saying this, but someone has to keep raising it.

Whay don't they ops through Melbourne, as we currently don't have a JNB flight, even though they operate over Melbourne and Geelong enoute to / from JNB??

It is rather silly for Melb. folk to fly to Sydney to board the aircraft, just to overfly Melbourne again a few hours later.

Stuart

Isnt viable to pay extra landing fees to pick maybe a few pax, unless there are alot of people flying upto SYD or PER to get on flights to South Africa (clearly by them not considering MEL there isnt) it anit going to happen.

[Rhys Xanthis]

http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?MAP-ST...=180&ETOPS=207

thats with etops 180 and 207...does the greyed out area mean the aircraft cant fly in the area due to ETOPS?

[Montague S]

I think when you get into the grey your going beyond the ETOPS limit, back in 2006 QF63 was enroute from SYD-JNB and diverted into Perth for fuel, its southerly most point was 56 degrees, or about 1500nm or so from Perth, that's a pretty big diversion and quite a southerly track.

I guess to avoid the strong headwinds...but what's interesting is that 2 years later, last week, the return flight was flying very close to Perth, that gives you some idea of how good the tail wind must've been.

I'd imagine they'd want to fly a twin as far away from that black hole that is the Southern Ocean as possible, but if its flying into a head wind that's been as strong as it has over the past few weeks then they might struggle doing the entire journey.

probably be weight restricted too?

you need to input it as NM & ETOPS 180 for V Australia's fleet...so the plane is going to end up probably flying closer to Perth or even overhead.

[Rhys Xanthis]

Well unless boeing get the ETOPS permission for 330 minutes, i would say VA have to go via Perth, and possibly running a domestic leg.

[Montague S]

pretty sure the 77W is ETOPS 330 certified...but VA doesn't need a subfleet of 330 because 180 is adequate for their SYD-LAX run.

[Radi K]

Originally Posted by Montague S

pretty sure the 77W is ETOPS 330 certified...but VA doesn't need a sub fleet of 330 because 180 is adequate for their SYD-LAX run.

As mentioned above, the 777 is only rated to 180/207....it has done the 330 flight tests but it's not signed off from the FAA.

240, let alone 330, would be a big step by Oct 09. Boeing is focused on the 787 project. Therefore via PER would seem more likely.

This whole process could also be just a capacity blocking exercise.

[Ken N]

Maybe time for a reality check here...........how about you guys read CAO 82.0 and CAAP 82-1(0).

[Montague S]

how about you link us towards it, Ken?

[Ken N]

Here you go.......

http://casa.gov.au/download/orders/cao82/8200.pdf

and

http://www.casa.gov.au/download/CAAPs/ops/82_1.pdf