POP Areoport closed due to weather?

My other half is at the airport waiting for a friend who was flying from Toronto. He was rerouted to SDQ, not sure when he is landing here. Although some planes have arrived. His arrival was 4:13..

Some people I know flew into POP today on Continental out of Newark, NJ. Their flight was supposed to arrive at 2pm but instead circled the airport waiting for permission to land, then diverted to SDQ, to refuel I guess, b4 continuing on to POP.

POP Airport!

actually just heard that the plane did not continue on to POP, their stranded for at least the night in Santo Domingo!

Runway was closed from approx. 2 p.m. today until 8 p.m. due to a weather system that hovered directly over the area for that long, very unusual. All the problems associated with arrivals and departures, just like a storm in NY or Canada, occurred, I hear. People were pi**ed, but at least safe. Closure was due to a very low cloud cover, very low visibility and a stationary front that would not blow away like they normally do in a half hour or hour, I hear. Cancellations are airline decisions with mitigating circumstances. Runway closure is airport tower decision. Seems to all add up to a pain in the butt.
Probably better though, than the guy I saw today who ran his spanking new Toyota jeepeta off into a flooded drainage ditch by Playero (supermarket) in Sosua, standing out in the rain looking for assistance; and surely better than the guy who fought a concrete wall by Brugal factory in Puerto Plata last night with his Mitsubishi and lost his life.
Did I mention the Haitians who got burned out of their shacks in Caraballo? by a vigilante group of neighbors?
Sorry if I regress. Relativity is I a defense mechanism that often works.

tflea said:

Probably better though, than the guy I saw today who ran his spanking new Toyota jeepeta off into a flooded drainage ditch by Playero (supermarket) in Sosua, standing out in the rain looking for assistance; and surely better than the guy who fought a concrete wall by Brugal factory in Puerto Plata last night with his Mitsubishi and lost his life.
Did I mention the Haitians who got burned out of their shacks in Caraballo? by a vigilante group of neighbors?
Sorry if I regress. Relativity is I a defense mechanism that often works.

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Those reports are terrible and sympathise with all concerned. Little dog hit in the middle of the road from Sabaneta to Cabarete yesterday suffered also as am sure the horse which died and was left at the side of the road in Sosua today did too.

tflea said:

Probably better though, than the guy I saw today who ran his spanking new Toyota jeepeta off into a flooded drainage ditch by Playero (supermarket) in Sosua, standing out in the rain looking for assistance; and surely better than the guy who fought a concrete wall by Brugal factory in Puerto Plata last night with his Mitsubishi and lost his life.
Did I mention the Haitians who got burned out of their shacks in Caraballo? by a vigilante group of neighbors?
Sorry if I regress. Relativity is I a defense mechanism that often works.

Click to expand...

Everytime I pass that drainage ditch I shake my head thinking sorry for the poor sap who runs into it. But if it fills up you won't see it.

just an update at least for the continental flight 512 from thursday. the new flight number is 1940 from SDQ to POP and tried to land at approximately 11am today but returned to santo domingo. the passengers were deboarded in santo domingo and are waiting as of 12:45pm. continental is trying for a 2pm departure but are unsure when.

looks like the flight to pop from sdq has been canceled and they are arranging ground transportation right now for an early evening arrival into pop. this is just for the continental flight 512 from yesterday and not sure about other flights

So what was the problem?

Oh, I know! A hard headed pilot, after his plane got a flat tire on the runway refused having the plane removed from the runway for 6 hours!

Nice uh?

As a sign of compliance, the authorities should had taxied that plane into the ocean!!

Problema en aeropuerto de Puerto Plata

-NALs

i've been at the PUJ airport today around noon, WUD and the Warden arrived, their plane airtransat #282 been sheduloed to land in POP first and continue to PUJ afterwards, they went straight into PUJ, the POP passengers been standing around in PUJ like lost. and there has been a huge crowd of many people who arrived from canada yesterday , couldn't land in Pop so they landed in PUJ, some hrs later a second try, flew to POP, couldn't land and came back to PUJ. spent the whole day here at the airport, been carried by bus for a short nap to the Sirenis resort in Uvero Alto(1 hr one way ride on our worst of all streets), 3AM this morning they got picked up at the resort, when i left the PUJ airport 1PM today they still been here without a clue what comes next. i spoke to some of them, meanless to mention that they are pi$$ed like hell, for a one week POP vaca they spent 2 days on the PUJ airport. i hope they could fly up there.
i don't understand why the tourops did not arrange some busses to provide ground transportation yesterday right away, they would have arrived in POP last night and would have understood that there's been a savety situation which made the action neccessary. but after a 2nd day on a different airport there's not that much to understand. poor organization/leak of flexibility.
wish them all that they are at their true destin now and enjoy our Isle
Mike

NALs said:

So what was the problem?

Oh, I know! A hard headed pilot, after his plane got a flat tire on the runway refused having the plane removed from the runway for 6 hours!

Nice uh?

As a sign of compliance, the authorities should had taxied that plane into the ocean!!

Problema en aeropuerto de Puerto Plata

-NALs

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Are you sure this is the same incident NALS? Only it says that video was uploaded to You Tube on Jan 19th. & the CDN2 report refers to the incident as 'yesterday' from the 19th. i.e. 18th. And the weather system tflea described was Thursday 22nd. I know it sounds something of a coincidence, but let's wait for tflea to clarify whether there was, in fact, an aircraft blocking the runway yesterday, Thurs. 22nd. or whether it was, as he said, a stationary weather system.

Either You Tube has the uploading date wrong or Aronis was able to foretell events 3 days before they happened!

Right

What you said Ms. Lambada.
The airport here, according to 15-yr. veterans, hasn't had such a low cloud ceiling and rain hang around this long in their memory, but it's sure playing hell with folk's travel plans 2 days in a row. no mata el mensajero. :surprised And the tour operators (and airlines) probably should have better contingency plans but it would cost them a little, which might explain a lot.

Lambada said:

Are you sure this is the same incident NALS? Only it says that video was uploaded to You Tube on Jan 19th. & the CDN2 report refers to the incident as 'yesterday' from the 19th. i.e. 18th. And the weather system tflea described was Thursday 22nd. I know it sounds something of a coincidence, but let's wait for tflea to clarify whether there was, in fact, an aircraft blocking the runway yesterday, Thurs. 22nd. or whether it was, as he said, a stationary weather system.

Either You Tube has the uploading date wrong or Aronis was able to foretell events 3 days before they happened!

Click to expand...

Good point.

I guess it was coincidental.

-NALs

I'm still waiting to hear from my friends that were to arrive from Canada Friday. They are not in PP yet.

Thomas Cook Flight TCX62K

The above flight from UK has just landed, on time, without any problems

Tropical Regards
Reidy

while a 2 days delay of a just 1 week vaca for a visitor is of course a big loss and would pi$$ off myself quiet a bit, too, the tourops or airliones do not have that hige amount of possibilities to be prepared for such. such conditions occure from one moment to an other, it starts slowly, incidents which happens once per decade are very hard/impossible to predict and get prepared for. where would be the rates for a vacation if the touragencies would need to have such sparecontingent of rooms in spare destins and spare airplanes to solve such a situation right away?
they would need to pay for such equipment every day which would be on top of the 'great vaca deals' everybody is looking for.
where i totally agree is the absolutely inprofessional behavior of the touragency's representatives here at the destin in such a situation. they are used to to just sell you as much excursions they can, but when i saw the situation my self yesterday at the PUJ airport i did not see any, not one of those representatives at the airport talking to the effected customers to explain them what's going on and what will happen next. the touragencies at the destins should start to understand for what they are paid for by apple aso aso, it is to take care of the incoming customers, not just beeing present to sell tours on a comission base and the rest is out of interest.
all those agencies who awaited their customers in puerto plata have offices and representatives here in punta cana where their customers accidentally arrived, and those should have been present at the airport to talk to their agency's customers in my opinion for more than a short hello and sorry and bye bye.
the by Nals mentioned incident been a funny one on which i totally agree with his prior statement, if that pilot doesn't wanna move just toe him into the ocean, but please don't hit the fishies, ha ha.
and that happened just a couple days prior to the actual weather related airport closing, it's easy to get it confused.
no reason to start a disussion about such.
happy travel
Mike