Philadelphia Flights Forced To Land For Fuel

As if flying via Philadelphia International Airport didn’t already suck enough, now word comes of an increase in unscheduled refueling stops for supposedly nonstop transatlantic flights from Europe to these parts. Apparently some “fluky weather pattern” (caused by that La Nina thing, naturally) is leading to the most extreme headwinds that meteorologists have seen in a decade, which means that it’s taking more fuel than it should for a plane to get from there to here. And since making a stop in Maine or Canada for a bit of petrol is a much better option than running out of gas 10 miles before touchdown, that’s just what pilots are doing. US Airways alone reports six such incidents for Philly-bound flights since the beginning of December, with three of them coming from Amsterdam. Bad trip, indeed. [Wall Street Journal]