USVI-On-Line

I was reading on another forum about the STT runway causing possible delays. Evidently they are replacing part of it and they have reduced the length by 1000' which limits weight of the plane.

Has anyone heard of any issues or delays?

I know they received a grant last year to repair the runway: http://stjohnsource.com/content/news/lo ... ing-runway

But I haven't heard of any significant delays. Anyone else?

VI Daily News had an article about it. It said all work is to be done at night (10:00 pm - 5:30 am) so no flights are supposed to be affected. The article didn't mention anything about a shortened runway.

http://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/i ... d=17644691

Also, it's currently a 7,000 ft runway. I don't know that they could make it much shorter or why they would be required to.

Certainly the local government or the airlines don't want to carry fewer passengers and increase traffic loads on air traffic control by increasing the number of planes in the air at any given time.

I flew in last Thursday and saw no evidence of any changes in the runway except for a small plane sitting on its nose just off the north side...

Yup....saw the plane on its nose too.....Oops. Last thing you want to see when you are taking off towards the mountain!

We flew out on Saturday. Delta flights were delayed. The JFK flight by about 3 hours and the 2:30 flight to Atlanta by about 2. They closed the last 1000 feet of runway, so the large planes could not make it with a full fuel tank. We were on the 4:30 to Atlanta and had to stop in San Juan to refuel. We missed a connection had to overnight in Atlanta. The flights on Sunday had stand by lists of over 70 people. Crazy!

Nanque wrote:We flew out on Saturday. Delta flights were delayed. The JFK flight by about 3 hours and the 2:30 flight to Atlanta by about 2. They closed the last 1000 feet of runway, so the large planes could not make it with a full fuel tank. We were on the 4:30 to Atlanta and had to stop in San Juan to refuel. We missed a connection had to overnight in Atlanta. The flights on Sunday had stand by lists of over 70 people. Crazy!

Yup - similar tales of travel woe reported on that BVI forum.

This scares the crap out of me. Not the flight delays and all of that, the whole "is there enough runway to land on/take off from." UGH.

I know that some of the runway at JFK is shut down due to repairs. Have heard nothing about STT though.

Left on Sunday afternoon. Heading to Miami. Only difference was that they really revved up the engine immediately and went for it. No problem - other than having to go back go work today!

Seagrape

On Sunday, an AA outbound flight was experiencing a significant delay getting out and their announcement said it related to the runway. I couldn't figure out how/why but it was definitely causing issues for those folks.

My Delta flight got out on time, no problem but it was a smaller plane. Not small, but not the mongo one. Don't you like my technical plane speak.

We checked since we have a Delta flight out to JFK, it appears they are taking off with less fuel and then stopping in San Juan to add fuel. Of course that puts us into JFK too late to catch our connecting flight to PDX. At least the delay will be on the way back.

The runway was lengthened after a serious crash in the late 1970s...some airlines wouldn't provide service until the runway was lengthened. I think it was lengthened in 1990...I read a couple articles on this...

Nanque wrote:We flew out on Saturday. Delta flights were delayed. The JFK flight by about 3 hours and the 2:30 flight to Atlanta by about 2. They closed the last 1000 feet of runway, so the large planes could not make it with a full fuel tank. We were on the 4:30 to Atlanta and had to stop in San Juan to refuel. We missed a connection had to overnight in Atlanta. The flights on Sunday had stand by lists of over 70 people. Crazy!

Really? Delta flies 757's in and out of STT. I'd think they could make it even loaded with fuel. It's not like they're bringing in any big wide bodies. That's amazing that they can't take off in 6000 feet and have enough fuel to get up to NYC or to ATL.

I pray this crap is fixed by July. Our home-bound connections don't allow for w 3+ hour delay.