What's happening in Charleroi and Maastricht

Flyeco · Post by **Flyeco** » 20 Nov 2005, 12:57

Airbus330lover wrote: As a aiprort is CAT III this will not say that the land in CAT III conditions

You're right, that's not the subject, and as acid-drop said (and it must close this discussion) Ryanair pilots landed yesterday at Liège in cat III conditions, so as in HHN.

LX-LGX · Post by **LX-LGX** » 20 Nov 2005, 14:09

London was also chaotic this morning, and quite some flights were / are delayed or cancelled:

www.baa.co.uk

Acid-drop · Post by **Acid-drop** » 20 Nov 2005, 15:07

More info about ILS for those who are interested :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_Landing_System

JetB · Post by **JetB** » 20 Nov 2005, 15:33

I do not care who gives the best training to their pilots.
Fact is that Ryanair customers are left stranded !.

Often a RYR AC is being diverted but departing customers are not being tranfered to the airport where the AC is being diverted to !.

jal · Post by **jal** » 20 Nov 2005, 17:15

luchtzak wrote:Well, I have learnt from pilots recently that however Ryanair B737 are equipped with a CATIII auto-landing system the pilots are not trained to perform an auto-land. Ryanair pilots may only land in CAT I operations, so not in foggy conditions.

I am sorry but what do you mean by I have learnt

Atlantis · Post by **Atlantis** » 20 Nov 2005, 17:51

The problems at Charleroi were this evening a topic at the news and on the radio's. It's since Saturday morning that an aircraft could land or depart. The pilots who fly on Charleroi could only land when the visibility is 600 m.

And as usual they give the word to some pax. One said that they have time and wait patiently when they could leave, another said that he don't want to used this airport anymore when he is travelling with his family.

Acid-drop · Post by **Acid-drop** » 20 Nov 2005, 18:03

RTL-TVi say :

almost all flight were canceled.
Planes that are still in Liège airport are forced to stay there.
No move in charleroi for now.

Post by **luchtzak** » 20 Nov 2005, 18:05

http://www.hln.be/hln/cch/det/art_142770.html

Note that I will take back my 'Ryanair-pilots not CATIII-trained'-statement and will recheck my sources.

Vinnie-Winnie · Post by **Vinnie-Winnie** » 20 Nov 2005, 18:25

JetB wrote:I do not care who gives the best training to their pilots.
Fact is that Ryanair customers are left stranded !.

Often a RYR AC is being diverted but departing customers are not being tranfered to the airport where the AC is being diverted to !.

Yes let's think about the poor passenger stranded at the airport who are stuck there with probably no other alternative than to wait!

Anyway probably time find a system wich beats the fog

Airbus330lover · Post by **Airbus330lover** » 20 Nov 2005, 21:08

JetB wrote:I do not care who gives the best training to their pilots.
Fact is that Ryanair customers are left stranded !.

Often a RYR AC is being diverted but departing customers are not being tranfered to the airport where the AC is being diverted to !.

Transfer time between CRL and LGG..... 45 minutes by bus.
I really don't understand why FR did not transferred the pax.
Second point.... result of a non IATA airline, no transfer on other companies.

You always got what you paid for !

Airbus330lover · Post by **Airbus330lover** » 20 Nov 2005, 21:10

Acid-drop wrote:RTL-TVi say :

almost all flight were canceled.
Planes that are still in Liège airport are forced to stay there.
No move in charleroi for now.

Forced by???
I FR care for the pax, they hire busses and transfer the pax

Acid-drop · Post by **Acid-drop** » 20 Nov 2005, 21:37

forced because they can take off, but they cannot land in charleroi

(I think they finally did, late this afternoon (from LGG to CRL))

it seems clear that they didnt want to transfert all passengers from charleroi to liege. Dont know why though. As you said before, it's only 45 min by bus, and a very good infrastructure is waiting for pax in liege

One more source about the situation (in french) :
http://www.regions.be/sites_sat/regions ... 8748.shtml

Post by **luchtzak** » 21 Nov 2005, 10:57

I made an error and accidentally removed 3 replies, here are these replies:

regi wrote:yes, poor passengers.
Despite they knew that they paid very little for the tickets of LCC, many of the travellers are not aware about what can happen to them.

an-148 wrote:he most disturbing is that they are not offered a possibility to join LGG (if FR would contact a busline company of either Charleroi or Liege to take people from one place to the other -only45min, always highway- the passenger would accept to pay 5/10 EUR with a smile if they can save the whole journey with this organisation and be thankful to the airline to organise it!)

jan_olieslagers wrote:
an-148 wrote:the most disturbing is that they are not offered a possibility to join LGG (if FR would contact a busline company of either Charleroi or Liege to take people from one place to the other -only45min, always highway- the passenger would accept to pay 5/10 EUR with a smile if they can save the whole journey with this organisation and be thankful to the airline to organise it!)
I'll agree to that. I can't pity the pax - they knew what they were in for, or at least could and should have known - but it would be small effort for FR to call a local coach operator and tell them there's money to be made. Heck they could even ask for a "finder's fee" or whatever you call it. As you said most pax would be quite prepared to pay a little extra - except a few who really can't read a ticket and would insist that FR should pay for the coach.

My appologies

jumbolino85 · Post by **jumbolino85** » 21 Nov 2005, 10:59

I see that many of you post the Avro as a cat II aircraft, this is not correct, all avro's of sn brussels airlines are CAT IIIb as well as all pilots

Acid-drop · Post by **Acid-drop** » 21 Nov 2005, 11:37

They got what they paid for ... i dont like this.
Ryanair gives the minimum, but when everything is ok, i'm quite happy with what I have. It's very nice for many people to travel for cheap.

But i do think that a 45 min transfer by bus when it's foggy _should be_ part of the minimum service. It's something very easy to organise and it would keep all pax happy.

A week end like we had is bad for the reputation of charleroi airport and bad for ryanair. They really should start to think about a solution, fog is not rare in belgium ... They are very lucky to have an alternative only 45 min away. They should use it !

an-148 · Post by **an-148** » 21 Nov 2005, 11:47

Yes, also the (official) landing fees are exactly the same in CRL and LGG!
I've put "official" under brackets, because THERE is mabe one reason to prefer the less equipped airport!
I believe one other reason is given by the name: one is called Brussels-something and the other is called after the town where it is actually located!

Avro · Post by **Avro** » 21 Nov 2005, 12:14

Let's calrify a little bit the different approaches. because I have the impression that people mix a lot of things...

Landings under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) are permitted when the ceiling exceeds 1000ft and the horizontal visibility exceeds 3 mi.

When this is not the case you need to approach under instrument Flight Rules (IFR). An IFR approach procedure is either nonprecision (lateral guidance only) or precision (both lateral and vertical guidance signals). This being said an IFR approach isn't always an ILS approach.

An instrument approach procedure describes the route the aircraft should follow and the altitude to be flown. The route and altitudes are referenced to the nav aids supporting the procedures, which may include VOR, VOR/DME, TACAN, VORTAC, NDB, IRUs, ILS, MLS, GNSS, precision approach radar, and airport surveillancve radar.

Now about the different ICAO landing categories:

The ICAO defines three categories of visibility for landing civil aircraft with the aid of an instrument landing system.

CATI: DH>200ft, RVR>= 2600ft
CATII: DH>100ft, RVR>= 1200ft
CATIIIa: DH <100ft, RVR >=700ft
CATIIIb: DH < 50ft, RVR>= 150ft
CATIIIc: No limits for DH and RVR

DH is the decison height which is the height above the runway at which the landing must be aborted if the runway is not in sight. And RVR is the Runway visual range which is the visibility at the runway surface.

The airport equipment and the airborne avionics and crew must also meet requirements to conduct such landings:

CATI: ILS and marker beacons, one pilot
CATII: Dual ILS receiver, radar altimeter, A/P coupler or dual flight director, 2 pilots, missed approach attitude guidance (go-around)
CATIIIa: Fail-passive (dual) autopilot or Head-up display (HUD)
CATIIIb: Fail-operational (triple) auotpilot, automatic rollout
CATIIIc: I don't know the additional requirements for this category

EDIT: I think the figures are correct, but don't hesitate to correct me if they aren't

Chris

Vinnie-Winnie · Post by **Vinnie-Winnie** » 21 Nov 2005, 12:57

jan_olieslagers wrote:
I'll agree to that. I can't pity the pax - they knew what they were in for, or at least could and should have known - but it would be small effort for FR to call a local coach operator and tell them there's money to be made. Heck they could even ask for a "finder's fee" or whatever you call it. As you said most pax would be quite prepared to pay a little extra - except a few who really can't read a ticket and would insist that FR should pay for the coach.

I disagree strongly most people never read the small prints and anyway they except to be brought safely and without problems to their destination. Safety is not really and issue, but once a problem arise well passengers find themselves screwed over by a company who cares for its customer in only one way: cheap fares!

It would have been a decent gesture for Ryanair to hire a bus and bring these people to Liege!

Anyway: Cocky David O'leary and Ryanair are slowly but surely getting more and more bad publicity. Remember the wheelchair issue at Stansted? That might force them to change their business practices.

So one day no more screwed over passengers because of outside issues such as fog!

Acid-drop · Post by **Acid-drop** » 21 Nov 2005, 13:04

an-148 wrote:Yes, also the (official) landing fees are exactly the same in CRL and LGG!
I've put "official" under brackets, because THERE is mabe one reason to prefer the less equipped airport!
I believe one other reason is given by the name: one is called Brussels-something and the other is called after the town where it is actually located!

Of course, i agree with you. Even though we are not really objective, since we are both LGG fans :p

Anyway, i'm sure charleroi airport is used before LGG only because it's closer to brussels and because it can be called brussels south (even if it sound a bit stupid for me). Liege has better infrastructure, bigger and free parking, direct connection to highways, high speed train and many more

Still, i'm very happy that both airport are used intensivly and that both are successfull in a different business. They are not opponent, they're more complimentary, and it's all good for everybody

That's why they should be more connected when they need each other. It's not the first time planes land in liege, and it's for sure not the last time.