Saturday, August 29, 2015

Rex Keyes: Airlines at fault for recent canceled flights at Monterey Regional Airport (KMRY)

By Rex Keyes, Guest commentary

In a recent article in The Herald, it appears that the Monterey Regional Airport was responsible for the cancellation of some 50 flights because one of the approaches was out of commission.


What actually happened is that one of the airlines canceled their flights to Monterey before their flights even left the ground. What wasn’t mentioned is that there are several other approaches to Monterey airport that could have been attempted instead of canceling. Sometimes the weather is reported too low for those approaches prior to departure, but there are circumstances in which an airplane can still make it in.


First, it is a 30-minute flight from San Francisco. The weather could clear up enough in that time for them to successfully arrive. Second, when an airplane makes an approach, at what is called the decision height or minimum decent altitude, even though the ceiling is reported too low for landing, if the pilots can see the runway they can go ahead and land.


Finally, if the pilots cannot make it in on one approach to a runway, they can attempt another approach to another runway in which they may easily make it in. Monterey has several approaches, which increases the chances of a pilot making a landing.


There are certain reasons why an airline would cancel a flight to Monterey. One is that a flight may be running late out of San Francisco or Los Angeles and by canceling they can get back on time for the remaining flights that the airplane is scheduled to fly. Another reason may be that the airline is trying to save money and does not want to take a chance on that airplane going all the way to Monterey, burning all that fuel, and having to return and disembark and take care of the passengers. Finally, an airline may have no competition in which the passengers can be booked on to their destination, by which the company would lose money.


If the weather was really socked in, with very low visibility, that could be a reason for delaying a flight at the departure airport and then maybe canceling, but that was not the case here when the localizer was down. Again, Monterey has several other approaches that were not even tried because an airline canceled the flights and did not give the pilots an option of trying those approaches.


I will say that one airline did not cancel, and that was Horizon Air, painted in the Alaska logo, and designated as Alaska planes. That is probably because that airline is based out of the Pacific Northwest where some of the worst weather in the U.S. exists and flying different approaches in bad weather is the norm.


Rex Keyes, a retired airline pilot, lives in Corral de Tierra.


Original article can be found here:   http://www.montereyherald.com/opinion 


Monterey Regional Airport begins return to normal operation

Monterey>> Monterey Regional Airport was returning to normal operations Monday night after an issue with the Federal Aviation Administration canceled 50 flights over five days.

The problem began Wednesday when the Instrument Landing System at Monterey’s airport was shut down by the FAA for federally-required runway construction.

Airport executive director Michael La Pier said the crisis was the fault of the FAA because it turned off the landing system’s localizer — a radio navigational signal aircraft use to locate the runway during poor weather — despite previous agreements.

The FAA was short in its response, but did not necessarily take blame.

“We explained at more than one Runway Safety Area meeting that the work would temporarily place the localizer out of service until we could flight check it,” FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said.

La Pier maintains it had a waiver from the administration’s technical operations division to keep the localizer operational throughout construction.

The FAA completed testing the system around 3:30 p.m. Monday, allowing the airport to OK flights coming in.

“In short, FAA Flight Standards’ last minute determination that the localizer needed to be flight checked before it could be considered operational is the root of the problem here,” La Pier said. “If they had made that decision earlier, steps could have been taken on their part to provide for the timely scheduling of the required flight check which could have at very least lessened the time the localizer was out of service.”

When asked why the airport did not issue a media release or a public statement about what was going on, La Pier pointed to its Facebook page that had a message posted telling passengers to check flight status.

An Aug. 17 post on the page noted construction and a limited landing system. It said “possible flight cancellations may occur if weather conditions are not favorable.”

Still, the airport’s Twitter and Facebook page had no information about the localizer being down or any updates on what to expect going into the weekend.

La Pier stressed the problem was not the fault of Monterey Regional Airport.

“The needs of the airport and its users were clearly and frequently advocated for by my staff and we were confident FAA understood those needs and had agreed to keep the localizer operational,” he said.

Airport board member Mary Ann Leffel said the problem was even more disheartening because the entire airport staff had just finished working extremely hard to accommodate heavy flight traffic during Classic Car Week.

Source:  http://www.montereyherald.com

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