A B777 first officer addressed his concerns about the manner in which his company's recently contrac...

Narrative:

Our commercially provided flight plan showed [multiple anomalous ETOPS alternate issues; including: untimely weather forecasts; incompatible runway landing runway performance; distant alternates vice suitable ones closer to our flight planned route; landing data incompatible with field conditions and snow/ice removal capability on only a limited basis not compatible with our potential utilization; etc.]we were told by dispatch that our landing performance was fine. [But our calculations showed landing distances for snow or ice with medium or poor braking] required a landing distance of 6;452 and 8;487 respectively. Both of these distances exceeded the landing distance available of 5;900. With ice and poor braking on the runway our actual landing distance exceeded the available distance by [at least] 1;500 ft. Landing performance was not fine.why could we not get fai as the ea [enroute alternate]? It seems that the commercially provided flight planning service would rather choose a military or civilian airport that is closed and not reporting field conditions instead of a more appropriate civilian airport which provides better facilities and reporting information. What is the provider's logic for choosing alternates?our commercially provided service does not perform far required landing performance calculations. Do they have the capability to perform landing performance calculations at intermediate airports such as eas? From past discussions with dispatch it appears they may not know how; or when; the service calculates landing distance information. What guidance and procedures does our company have to address this?it appears that dispatchers may not know how to easily manage the flight plans to comply with the pics request for a specific ea; da; or ia. Does the service easily provide for this capability? Are dispatchers adequately trained to manipulate the service to accomplish this? The zbaa airport staff met us at immigration with the flight paperwork and asked if we wanted to go to operations. Proper flight planning support is available in operations and fom guidance requires flight planning in operations. Airport staff should not be encouraging the crews to not go to operations in any manner.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B777 First Officer addressed his concerns about the manner in which his company's recently contracted commercial flight planning service selected and monitored alternates; especially ETOPS alternates; for long range international flights.

Narrative: Our commercially provided flight plan showed [multiple anomalous ETOPS Alternate issues; including: untimely weather forecasts; incompatible runway landing runway performance; distant alternates vice suitable ones closer to our flight planned route; landing data incompatible with field conditions and snow/ice removal capability on only a limited basis not compatible with our potential utilization; etc.]We were told by Dispatch that our landing performance was fine. [But our calculations showed landing distances for snow or ice with medium or poor braking] required a landing distance of 6;452 and 8;487 respectively. Both of these distances exceeded the landing distance available of 5;900. With ice and poor braking on the runway our actual landing distance exceeded the available distance by [at least] 1;500 FT. Landing performance was not fine.Why could we not get FAI as the EA [Enroute Alternate]? It seems that the commercially provided flight planning service would rather choose a military or civilian airport that is closed and not reporting field conditions instead of a more appropriate civilian airport which provides better facilities and reporting information. What is the provider's logic for choosing alternates?Our commercially provided service does not perform FAR required landing performance calculations. Do they have the capability to perform landing performance calculations at intermediate airports such as EAs? From past discussions with Dispatch it appears they may not know how; or when; the service calculates landing distance information. What guidance and procedures does our company have to address this?It appears that dispatchers may not know how to easily manage the flight plans to comply with the PICs request for a specific EA; DA; or IA. Does the service easily provide for this capability? Are dispatchers adequately trained to manipulate the service to accomplish this? The ZBAA airport staff met us at immigration with the flight paperwork and asked if we wanted to go to operations. Proper flight planning support is available in operations and FOM guidance requires flight planning in operations. Airport staff should not be encouraging the crews to not go to operations in any manner.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.

Attributes
ACN	984328
Time
Date	201112
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZBAA.Airport
State Reference	FO
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B777 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Parked
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 220 Flight Crew Total 14236 Flight Crew Type 4220
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural FAR Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

A B777 first officer addressed his concerns about the manner in which his company's recently contracted commercial flight planning service selected and monitored alternates; especially ETOPS alternates; for long range international flights.