weight problem...not me....the plane

[andyb99]

last week i took a holiday in italy which meant me flying to innsbruck airport in austria. Just as we closed the doors the AA emergency landing at manchester happened which meant we sat on the plane for 3.5 hours. not good but we got away safely and i concentrated on drinking (i dont like flying much)
after a weeks skiing we arrived back at innsbruck to find out the storms accross europe were causeing havok and our plane hadnt yet arrived. 5 hours later the pilot told us we either had to ditch all the luggage and 100 passengers and he could take off over the mountains. needless to say they waited...then took off the day after. thing was. the day after the passengers were on board but the luggage wasnt!!

i was scared...how could things change in a day? were they lying? how could they get all our luggage there but not take it back??

nothing really happened on the flight but they had also ditched the catering and the bar! as a scared flyer this was all terrifying.

anybody have any opinions on what might have been going on?

[screaming_emu]

I'm guessing what happened was that because the weather was bad at your destination they had to file an alternate airport for the flight plan. This requires the aircraft to carry more fuel so they can go to the original destination, shoot an approach, go missed, fly to the other airport, then fly for 45 mins after at a normal cruise speed.

Because they had to carry extra fuel, they became weight limited. It could be because they dont have enough runway at the departure or destination airport, it could be that they wont be able to clear terrain with the required safety margin, or they could simply be over the maximum takeoff or landing weight for the aircraft.