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Staying on Flight Plan routes

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NCherches

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 13, 2006
Posts
691
...So I'm a corporate guy and often hear airline's being cleared to a fix down-the-line and the pilot reply's that he would like to stay on the filed route.

What is the common reason for this or is there a bunch of variables?

My guess is for dispatched anticipated winds advantages, weather, Arrival Gate issues if early, being overweight for landing, etc?

Just seems like us corporate driver's jump all over short cuts while the 121 guys only somtimes want it.... Just curious.
 
Two possibilities:

1. The airline's dispatch software takes an enormous amount of variables into account and the filed route is the best of all worlds - winds, delays, turbulence, weather. To deviate off the filed route would be less efficient and cost more in time and fuel.

2. The airline's pilots are nearing their fourth year of ugly negotiations and they get paid by the minute.
 
You're obviously not hearing SWA decline a direct!

There's another possibility that I experienced a few times in the regional world:

3. For whatever reason, Dispatch gave you shiatload of extra gas and combined with a full passenger load and a jumpseater, your planned fuel burn puts you right at MLW...so a shortcut doesn't help you one bit.

This happened somewhat regularly in the CRJ-200...
 
You're obviously not hearing SWA decline a direct!

There's another possibility that I experienced a few times in the regional world:

3. For whatever reason, Dispatch gave you shiatload of extra gas and combined with a full passenger load and a jumpseater, your planned fuel burn puts you right at MLW...so a shortcut doesn't help you one bit.

This happened somewhat regularly in the CRJ-200...


The above is probably the most commom reason...
 
"You're obviously not hearing SWA decline a direct!"



You sure about that? I fly for Southwest and yes we usually like direct, but not always. We sometimes have routing due to winds and/or mountain wave/turb. And we even get notes on our flight plan to not accept direct routing for these reasons.

So you don't hear us decline very often. But we do somtimes.
 
A few humble guesses:
1) Running at CI =0 and still showing too early. (may be a gate hold upon landing)
2) Drift-down performance over terrain.
3) Straight Cash. Most likely this option in Section 6.
 
Usually for us it's because dickscratch flight planned us around a nasty line of storms and if we went direct we'd be in the middle of it.
 
...So I'm a corporate guy and often hear airline's being cleared to a fix down-the-line and the pilot reply's that he would like to stay on the filed route.

What is the common reason for this or is there a bunch of variables?

My guess is for dispatched anticipated winds advantages, weather, Arrival Gate issues if early, being overweight for landing, etc?

Just seems like us corporate driver's jump all over short cuts while the 121 guys only somtimes want it.... Just curious.

It usually involves fuel - either to much, you are pushing your max landing weight...or to little - and you don't have an FMS. Most off route direct clearances save just a few minutes and just a little fuel. Once you leave your filed route you have no way to check your current fuel against your planned fuel. If you are behind on fuel, considering a divert, with no FMS you will stay on your filed route.
 
Speaking from the "other side of the release", at SWA we run best winds routes when they would possibly be advantageous. Once you calculate crossing restrictions, etc, if the savings is enough you'll (in my experience) see the recommendation to stay on the best winds route.

I try to include the note "directs negate the savings", and the amount of time and fuel the route should save so the crew knows that if they stay on the filed route they will save xxxx lbs of fuel and save xx mins. While I have no problem loading the bird up with fuel when needed, if a best winds route will save 1500 lbs of fuel and 14 mins of flight time and a crew still chooses directs (with no specific reason why other than habit), that's when we have an issue because they're burning my profit sharing check. :)

Turb/Mtn wave avoidance routes get the same notice on the release and the directive to not deviate if at all possible while in the zone.
 
Thanks for joining the discussion SKC.

From "the other side of the release" I am curious about something. Is there a generic Flight planning/dispatch software, or is it unique to each company? What I really mean, is the descent profile. Is it always an idle descent from cruise, or is there the ability to put in some actual default crossing altitudes in places like PHL and MDW where they bring us down early reallly far out?

In PHL for example, the SLATT arrival has us over SPUDS at something like 26K on the release, but is that reality? I know we pad some of the busy city flights, but it would help if the actual fuel burn reflected true crossing altitudes.
 

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