Narrative:

I was the captain of a flight to lga. I had called dispatch about an hour before departure. I was concerned about the weather as well as the fact that there was no flight plan on file. He told me that with the heavy rain in the forecast he was not able to dispatch me to lga. I agreed that using braking action medium for planning purposes was correct in this situation since heavy rain was likely and braking action would be less than good. Even with a grooved runway my experience has taught me that lga can be very slippery in rain especially heavy rain. The flight operations manual states that anything greater than 1/8 inch water should be considered fair to poor. We agreed that ewr would be our best bet and I electronically signed the release to ewr.while waiting for our wheels up time I got a message from the dispatcher. He wrote 'long story short the issue was the braking action in lga being medium due to moderate rain. You would not believe the pressure the company has put on me to get the flight to go to lga even though their flight planning system shows we can't land in lga with this aircraft type. Anyways; have a safe flight'. I thanked him for is diligence and departed for ewr. In cruise I queried scheduling about the plan with us when we got to ewr as our schedule showed us going to lga after we land. He wrote back 'manager of dispatch operations is trying to get you guys into lga without the stop in ewr. If you go to ewr it is likely that the continuation flight would cancel'. I responded that as per the ATIS there is currently heavy rain in lga and we don't have the performance to land. We continued on to ewr without incident. It saddens me that my dispatcher would feel any pressure to fly to dispatch us to an airport that we deemed unsafe. He did a great job and should be commended. A quick run of the numbers shows our stopping distance approximately 7500 feet while lga's runways are 7000 feet long. Some might say that we were being conservative using brakes medium but I feel that it was the prudent thing to do. Heavy rain was indeed over lga at our arrival time.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier Captain reported the Dispatcher received resistance to planning the flight to another nearby airport with more suitable landing conditions due to heavy rain at the original destination.

Narrative: I was the captain of a flight to LGA. I had called dispatch about an hour before departure. I was concerned about the weather as well as the fact that there was no flight plan on file. He told me that with the heavy rain in the forecast he was not able to dispatch me to LGA. I agreed that using braking action medium for planning purposes was correct in this situation since heavy rain was likely and braking action would be less than good. Even with a grooved runway my experience has taught me that LGA can be very slippery in rain especially heavy rain. The Flight Operations Manual states that anything greater than 1/8 inch water should be considered fair to poor. We agreed that EWR would be our best bet and I electronically signed the release to EWR.While waiting for our wheels up time I got a message from the dispatcher. He wrote 'long story short the issue was the braking action in LGA being medium due to moderate rain. You would not believe the pressure the company has put on me to get the flight to go to LGA even though their flight planning system shows we can't land in LGA with this aircraft type. Anyways; have a safe flight'. I thanked him for is diligence and departed for EWR. In cruise I queried scheduling about the plan with us when we got to EWR as our schedule showed us going to LGA after we land. He wrote back 'MGR of dispatch OPS is trying to get you guys into LGA without the stop in EWR. If you go to EWR it is likely that the continuation flight would cancel'. I responded that as per the ATIS there is currently heavy rain in LGA and we don't have the performance to land. We continued on to EWR without incident. It saddens me that my dispatcher would feel any pressure to fly to dispatch us to an airport that we deemed unsafe. He did a great job and should be commended. A quick run of the numbers shows our stopping distance approximately 7500 feet while LGA's runways are 7000 feet long. Some might say that we were being conservative using brakes medium but I feel that it was the prudent thing to do. Heavy rain was indeed over LGA at our arrival time.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.