Wet weather causes disruptions for Cayman Airways

| 22/05/2018 | 42 Comments

(CNS): Cayman Airways officials said that scheduled flights were operating largely as expected Tuesday after a difficult day Monday, when several flights were delayed and diverted. The national flag carrier said it would continue to monitor the weather conditions, given that heavy rain is expected all week, and update the travelling public when necessary. On Monday the KX201 flight from Tampa had to be diverted to Sangster International Airport (MBJ) in Montego Bay, and flight KX883 from La Ceiba had to be diverted to the Charles Kirkconnell International Airport (CKIA) in Cayman Brac.

This had a knock-on effect to the Miami flights KX106 and KX107, which were both delayed over five hours. All flights Monday afternoon to and from the Sister Islands also experienced delays of up to three hours, with Express flights KX4424 and KX4725 being cancelled.

Due to aircraft changes today, Cayman Airways has added an extra jet flight to and from Miami, with KX3104 departing Grand Cayman at 5:30pm, arriving in Miami at 8pm; and KX3105 departing Miami at 9pm, and arriving on Grand Cayman at 9:30pm.

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Speaking of bad weather I am appalled that there was no talk of jet ways to be included in the airport’s over budgeted vain renovation! They seem to care more about how the damn airport looks than protecting passengers from the weather!!!

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  2. Anonymous says:

    Old pilot saying, ‘Better to be on the ground wishing you were flying than flying wishing you were on the ground.’ Always better to be safe than sorry.

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  3. Say t like it is says:

    Of course it’s the pilot’s decision, and that may be the problem on certain airlines. I have flown into Heathrow hundreds of times often in rainstorms with low visibility where you don’t see the runway until you are only 20ft above it. Diversions do occur in heavy fog, very high winds, or snow, but I have never experienced one due to rain.

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    • Say t like it is says:

      Well here we have 8 born Caymanians disputing absolute fact.

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      • Anonymous says:

        Because you’re saying it as if it isn’t possible to have a diversion due to rain, foo’!

    • Hillary says:

      Heathrow is capable of handling zero visibility landings. This involves precision approaches that are not available at Owen Roberts. Both crew and aircraft follow a very strict qualification process to be able to carry out these approaches. These landings are conducted on auto-pilot (usually two) and the captain only disconnects the auto-pilot at less than sixty knots after the auto-land. FYI, BA conducted numerous approaches here the other day before heading back to Nassau. If it were Heathrow, that 777 would have landed with no sweat.

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      • Anonymous says:

        7:29 You’re mostly right on that except for one point – ORIA has a fairly short runway (7000′ compared to about 12000′ at LHR) and heavy rain dramatically increases braking distances. Officially you only need to add 15% but because ORIA requires such hard braking any sensible flight crew would add a bit more to that. Standing water also increases the take-off run so you might get down then have problems getting out again. It’s all about safety.

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    • Anonymous says:

      I have experienced such a delay down to rain 1.12pm 2yrs ago from Dubai to Heathrow London. We had to circle the airport for half an hour while the runway was made safe for the airline to land. The rain was so severe it flooded the runway too bad for a safe landing.

    • Kadafe says:

      London Heathrow is a completely different airport, ORIA cannot compare to LHR, LHR has different approach systems and is capable of handling aircraft approaches in little to no visibility in snow storms, rain storms etc. They have equipment that communicates with the aircraft navigation system, versus ORIA which is a visual approach (need to be able to see to land).

  4. Bertie :B says:

    Lucky for everyone that fly these days , Pilots are human and really want to get home alive and in one piece , Bless the pilots ! they know their planes just like you all know your car .

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  5. Anonymous says:

    United got diverted to Mobay. I was on the CAL flight also diverted to Mobay. Totally okay with it – better late than never i.e. crash due to hubris. Huge thanks to the pilots, crew, airport staff in Mobay and locally who had to work overtime to get us home safely.

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  6. Anonymous says:

    There are a lot of moronic comments on here. I was on that flight. It was a full flight with nine infants onboard. Do you think the pilots really wanted to risk unsafe landing conditions (severe lack of visibility) and crash? They made the right decision.

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    • Fly by the Seat of your Pants says:

      Well I live right under the flight path of arrivig aircraft and it seems judging by the numeber of landings during the bad weather only Cayman Airways pilots deemed it necessary to divert to Timbuctoo.

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    • Anonymous says:

      I was on the KX201 flight and with what happened in Cuba just last week, I’ll take an inconvenient diversion for a couple of hours to my body being fished out of the sea or scraped off the ground. Kudos to you Cayman Airways for putting the safety of the passengers first.

      I also discovered the liquor is much cheaper in Jamaica than here…

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  7. Anonymous says:

    Now entering a dry spell and disruptions will continue as usual.

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  8. Anonymous says:

    I was on this flight coming from LCE, trust me the weather was bad the pilot did make an attempt to land the plane and it was unable therefore we were diverted to CYB.

    Better safe then Sorry. Safety first

    Although the Jet ways seem to be very much needed as a CAL employee had to single hand umbrellas to the passengers they were very limited and had to keep going back and forth to accommodate everyone.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Wow as a former CAL ramp agent having to hand out umbrellas that were useless with the high winds and never having a sufficient quantity for a full flight I hope jet ways will be in the future. Does anyone still know if they still use that obsolete covered stairs that doesn’t actually cover the forward entry passenger door.

    • Anonymous says:

      The absolute stupidity of not providing jetways for the new terminal building simply staggers the imagination! Instead we’l get a mega-million dollar sea port? Go figure!

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  9. Anonymous says:

    It wasn’t only Cayman Airways.

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  10. Anonymous says:

    It’s hardly just a bit of rain….If a pilot considers it unsafe to land, that’s fine by me as long as they get us to an alternate location safely….some airlines will pressure pilots for commercial reasons to get the plane down regardless, which can lead to tragedy….can’t believe some people are confident enough to question the judgement of trained pilots….amazing how the internet makes everyone an expert…well done Cayman Airways for continuing a brilliant record of safety whilst operating an aging fleet in hostile (salt air) conditions for decades….and the future is bright with the new planes coming

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  11. Anonymous says:

    How is this news? CAL is always delayed!

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  12. Anonymous says:

    Do not doubt the skill of our National Carrier’s pilots. They are actually very good at this.
    If their decision was that a landing was not safe, then it was not safe to land!
    Don’t blame the pilots.

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  13. Anonymous says:

    Why can’t our pilots land planes in the rain? It’s 2018.

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    • Anonymous says:

      It should be illegal to make stupid comments like this in 2018.

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      • Anonymous says:

        It’s a fair question. Is it a function of runway drainage, lack of radar guidance, electrostatic threat, or that our ground crews don’t like getting wet? Doesn’t imply the pilots suck, just that they have to work within the constraints of the CIAA operating handicaps at Owen Roberts, whatever those are. Maybe we want to find out and improve our all-weather capability?

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    • Anonymous says:

      Perhaps because there are no Jetways…

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    • annonymous says:

      please put your brain in gear before you open your mouth to make a stupid comment. It is not only in Cayman that rain interrupts flights, the reason for delays is for the safety of the flight, why do you think we have air traffic controllers all over the world if the pilots can do whatever they want. get a grip!!!

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    • Tim says:

      In cayman airport they don’t have same equipment as New york or Heathrow which they can land poor viz till 20 feet above ground.

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  14. Anonymous says:

    Bananna republic with third world airport. Bit of rain says it all

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    • Anonymous says:

      If you don’t know or understand aviation, common sense would or should dictate that you’d get the facts before commenting. I’d suggest that in the future.

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      • Anonymous says:

        I will wager a bet that all those bad- mouthing the pilots had their backsides planted safely on the ground. They are trained to make safe landings and not taking risks. That is a good thing I would think.

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  15. Say it like it is says:

    Well, a jet landed this morning (Tuesday), at 4.30am, which if it was Cayman Airways was a lot more than a 5 hour delay

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