Unexpected flight arrives Saturday at the Eagle County airport
Thunderstorms in Denver require two planes and a crew to come to Eagle County
Courtesy photo
Commercial airports have to be ready for “irregular operations.” The Eagle County Regional Airport had one of those operations on Saturday, June 14.
According to Eagle County Deputy Aviation Director Josh Miller, a United Airlines Airbus A321 NEO, an aircraft with a capacity of more than 200 passengers, was bound from Seattle to Denver early Saturday evening. Thunderstorm activity in the Denver area put air traffic there into a holding pattern, with aircraft unable to land or take off.
The flight was originally going to divert to Colorado Springs, but wild weather there diverted traffic at that airport.
With the aircraft from Seattle running low on fuel, the decision was made to land at the Eagle County airport. And that’s when the operation got irregular.
The Airbus A321 NEO isn’t yet certified to use Eagle County’s airport. The aircraft landed safely, but it’s a big plane, with a larger capacity than even the Boeing 757s that still occasionally use the airport. Those aircraft, with a passenger capacity of roughly 185 people, have largely been replaced at Eagle County by variants of the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A319 and A320. Those aircraft can carry around 150 people, depending on the configuration.
Support Local Journalism
More importantly, aircraft that serve Eagle County have to be flown by crews certified to fly into and out of the high-elevation facility.
All of that meant the unexpected flight created some complicated situations.
Since all the ramps were already occupied — a first for the summer, Miller said — getting the passengers off the plane required using the old stairway to get most people off the plane and onto the tarmac. But, Miller added, some of those passengers were wheelchair users and required lift help to get from the plane to the tarmac. That help was available, but it took some time.
Make staying informed the easiest part of your day.
Sign up for daily or weekly newsletters at VailDaily.com/newsletter
Once on the ground, those passengers needed to reboard two aircraft to complete their journey to Denver. That took some time, in part because the weather had to clear in Denver. And, two aircraft had to be dispatched to Eagle County.
One of the replacement aircraft was the United flight from Chicago, set to return to Chicago the following morning. That required another plane to be sent for the return flight to Chicago.
In addition, the crew for the A321 wasn’t certified to fly into and out of Eagle County, so an Eagle County-certified crew had to be dispatched to shuttle the larger aircraft back out of the airport.
With an unexpected landing, the airport’s ground crew wasn’t ready, so crew members had to spring into action, Miller said, particularly to get the staircase ready for use. The entire operation lasted into the evening, he said.
“It was definitely a bit of an interesting experience, for sure,” Miller said.
