Came back yesterday on Monarch ZB239 (an A320) and was surprised that because the wind was from the North and the plane was nearly full, plane could not take on full load of fuel. Had to land in Faro to top-up. For all the times I've been to Lanza never had that happen before (and plane is usually always nearly full). Anyone else had this experience?

Bruce

The only time I have heard of an unscheduled stop at faro was for a dead body.Someone had an heart attack apparently.

It happened to us once too. It was the only time we ever flew out of Glasgow and I think the B737 was on the limit of it's range. Anyway, we did stop at Faro and sat with the doors open during re-fuelling. It was also the worst landing we ever had when we got to Glasgow due to extreme winds. In the last 40 minutes or so of the flight we were told by the captain that we were flying at over 700mph due to high tailwinds. There was a lot of screaming during the landing and, when we got out of the terminal luggage trolleys were being blown around.
The same thing also happened once when flying out of Newcastle to Cyprus when we landed to re-fuel at Teeside !!!!

This isn't about the plane being overweight ( that's the excuse they use ) it's about cheaper fuel in Faro.

Must be a lot cheaper, a mid trip landing and climb back to altitude uses a lot!

The Airbus A320 has a standard temperature take off run of 2090m, Lanza's runway is 2400m. Fully loaded it can fly 2600nm non-stop.

Hit it with 30C temps and the run is increased by 15% giving a need for 2403m runway. Hence if fully loaded the A320 does need to reduce fuel to enable a safe stop on the runway in the VERY rare event of a problem.

In the 80ies and 90ies we more often than not landed to top-up in FARO. It was perfectly normal in those days.......

The reason was the same: Taking off towards the North meant planes could not be topped up before take off as they would be too heavy....

A couple of years ago an Easy Jet plane we were on wouldnt take off untill they had bumped a number of passengers. Said it wouldnt get over the mountains. Needless to say I didnt tell Jen untill we were clear of Lanza.

Ray

Cymmon, Nice calcs, but the temp yesterday was low twenties when the OP flew.

Had to stop at Faro a few years ago coming home from La Palma, same reason was given.

I personally know the pilot of that flight and I put this question to him this morning and he said the reason he made a mid-flight landing in Faro is because he forget his duty Free's in lanzarote so bought them in Faro instead....make's sence I suppose.