Boeing 777s to fly from LBA

Read the forum code of contact

Member for

18 years 5 months

Posts: 128

Pakistan International Airlines are to commence Boeing 777 flights on its twice weekly Leeds/Bradford to Islamabad schedule, replacing the aging A310s from 13th March

This is great news for LBA

www.lbia.co.uk

Original post

Member for

16 years

Posts: 455

More of a techie question, but will that be negatively weight limited? The runway is only 7,300ft.

Member for

18 years 5 months

Posts: 128

Exactly what I was thinking as well. I guess certain weather conditions will have to be considered, especially when its hot, calm wind and a runway 32 departure. I can see some flights being diverted to Manchester in this case.

No doubt the spotters will be out in full force for the first visit !!

Member for

11 years 2 months

Posts: 901

It won't be landing much, if you have wind at L/B it's usually a cross wind. Then you have the fog issue. Prone to snow due to the elevation. Not an idea site for an airport!

Member for

16 years

Posts: 455

Remember coming in during windy weather, another 757 was doing about 3 approaches, the Ryanair pilot was not going to do that! first time I have heard a UK passenger aircraft clap out of relief at the landing (due to the weather).

Member for

14 years

Posts: 949

LBA-ISB is ~3,300nm. The 7,300ft runway will allow for a max ~47T payload for the 777-200ER, ~64T for the 777-200LR and ~37T for the 777-300ER. All ballpark, and not taking into account winds, and fuel reserves.

Member for

20 years 7 months

Posts: 2,623

LBA's runway is actually alot shorter than that, the declared distances are as follows:

Rwy 14 (Threshold)

TORA: 1803 m
ASDA: 1803 m
LDA: 1802 m

Rwy 32 (Threshold)

TORA: 1913 m
ASDA: 1913 m
LDA: 1916 m

Member for

19 years 10 months

Posts: 784

It was confirmed that the Islamabad - Leeds rout will remain operate as a non-stop service when the Boeing 777-200ER start from next month.

I understand that PIA's Boeing 777's have the more powerful GE90 engines on them. Their 200ERs have 94K the 200LRs have 110K whilst the larger 300ERs have 115K.

So yes it’ll be tight as LBA's runway is just 7382ft in length, Landing at typical weight requires around 5000ft so a runway 14 arrival will need to be on the numbers! LDA for runway 14 is only 5912ft where as the LDA for runway 32 is 6286ft, so plenty of room there.

Max weight departures will not happen as it would mean they would be limited on payload and most likely require a tech stop enroute. The good news is that seen as Leeds to Islamabad is nowhere near max range of the Boeing 777 aircraft this shouldn’t be an issue, So it will be able to remain a non-stop service..

Member for

17 years 10 months

Posts: 35

Trust me! LBA is short for a 777. Newcastle is getting there, as one of the shortest, for the -300ER.
On a wet and windy day, no thanks LBA.

DXB Driver.

Member for

19 years 10 months

Posts: 784

The figures i quoted above were for the Boeing 777-300 aircraft so yeah I agree with what you say Dxb Driver. But the good news is that Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) will be using the Boeing 777-200ER which won’t be as problematic for the obvious reasons...

Member for

18 years

Posts: 60

Looks like this is a non-starter. The change of aircraft in mid-February failed to materialise. The schedule then showed the 777 operating from the 30th March, however the whole summer schedule is now back to being operated by the old Airbus A310's.

Member for

14 years

Posts: 949

Did they not just cancel an order for second-hand A320s? I'm sure I read that they even had the registrations ready, but at the last minute dropped the deal. Would this suggest that all isn't well with PIA fleet planning?