Posted on 08/01/2021 7:32:42 PM PDT by DoodleBob
Nantucket Memorial Airport has run out of jet fuel at the peak of summer, impacting commercial and private flights at one of New England’s busiest transportation hubs.
On Saturday the airport suspended jet fuel sales and informed commercial carriers that they needed to fly into the island fully loaded with fuel due to the shortage.
Airport officials said Saturday night that they were not only facing overwhelming demand for jet fuel, but also a logistical nightmare in getting fuel tanker trucks to the island due to record competition for reservations this summer on the Steamship Authority ferries. They also cited a national truck driver shortage as playing a role in the unprecedented situation.
On Saturday, the airport reserved jet fuel for its scheduled air carriers – including JetBlue, Delta, United and American – in order to ensure those flights and thousands of passengers reached their destinations. Around 1 p.m., the airport stopped selling fuel to the hundreds of private aircraft that come and go from the island on any given summer day.
But on Sunday, it will be “no jet fuel for anyone,” Assistant Airport Manager Noah Karberg said. “We’ve been monitoring this event since Wednesday or Thursday. We’ve put all our air carriers on notice that they had to come in full (of fuel) or schedule an appropriate fuel stop.”
More fuel is expected to arrive on Nantucket via tanker truck by Monday morning with the arrival of the early Steamship Authority ferry.
Until then, dozens of private flights are expected to be impacted on Sunday and commercial airlines will be forced to adjust their operations coming and going from Nantucket. At least one passenger leaving the island over the weekend described how his American Airlines flight left Nantucket but needed to stop and refuel, causing missed flight connections in Philadelphia.
The airport will be holding roughly 3,000 gallons of jet fuel in reserve for Boston Medflight helicopters should they need it, as well as for search and rescue operations.
Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration on Saturday issued a formal “Notice to Airmen”, or NOTAM, regarding the situation.
Jet fuel sales are up 60 percent at Nantucket Memorial Airport compared to 2019, and by the end of July it had pumped over 1 million gallons of Jet-A fuel, a record.
The competition for ferry reservations is another factor, as one cancellation at the beginning of the month threw the airport’s entire fuel delivery schedule into chaos, with ripple effects that were still being felt by the end of July as it tried to play catch-up.
Nantucket Memorial Airport’s fuel tank farm holds 100,000 gallons of jet fuel – enough to cover normal traffic for four to five days – but the demand this summer has drained supplies to the point it was holding essentially a single day’s worth of fuel on most days in July.
Is there something more to this story? How does an airport run out of fuel, on an island where many people with names like Kennedy and Kerry hang out (though I think Kerry sold his place recently)?
There once was a pilot from Nantucket,,,
There’s one in every crowd. Thank you for renewing my faith in humanity.
I care about this as much as rich people care about my problems.
So who all would be flying private planes to Nantucket?
Money.
If one is not I to pay transportation cost, one will not get supplies greater than contacted.
Pay the money, the suppliers would find a way to deliver. Even if it means docking a fuel barge at the island.
The folks with private jets who want you to walk 20 miles to work instead of driving. And don't forget to turn off your air conditioning when it gets over 90.
Good! The jets are bigger than the island and would cause it to capsize ...
You hire people who are woke rather than people who can keep track of fuel in and out, place timely orders and plan extra for contingencies, like other outfits who went for woke over competence.
It is probably just an indication of how much money elite liberals have accumulated over the course of the pandemic. They have so much money that taking their own jet to Nantucket is now common, instead of flying over in a commercial plane, or a smaller prop plane running on av-gas. Of course on the serfs ride on the ferry.
Truckers have been choked off. That last mile is almost always via truck.
Helen, Brian, and Joe won’t be happy about this.
The epidemic shutdown, and the recovery from it, have been completely problematic in a just-in-time world. (Anyone remember oil futures prices turning negative in late April of 2020?) It is a credit to those greedy oil companies, etc. that things have gone as well as they have, given all the unprecedented stuff we have seen since February of last year.
ok, now that is funny.
*Inside joke from 1999.
Shipping issues.
MAJOR shipping issues.
With the worldwide lockdown ships ended up getting stuck in various ports for months on end. Thanks to efficiency standards and the ever popular “zero inventory” model (where little to no inventory is ever kept on hand - you just deliver what’s needed ASAP) we started shipping back up out of order - so supplies aren’t where they need to be, let alone component parts for assemblies (see Computer Chips).
On top of that, theres a worldwide container shortage where containers are piling up in some docks that have no supply and other docks have NO containers where some docks are completely full and ready to be loaded.
So you’re ending up with shortfalls everywhere. Here with oil, Taco Bell with food supply issues, computer chip shortage, etc;
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/up-temporarily-stopping-eastbound-container-service-to-chicago
Container ships, which also carry fuel are
I don't know about Nantucket's airport, but the ferry system for most islands book months in advance. I wonder if the same is true for private airplanes landing in Nantucket. If so, then there is NO excuse for running low/out of fuel...the supply and demand isn't so random.
Keep the world shut down long enough and eventually you’ll run out of a lot more than jet fuel.
As I wrote elsewhere, for a place like Nantucket airport where - I presume - the incoming flights are pretty scheduled (even the private ones), then there shouldn't be too much variation in supply and demand. That's why this is so unusual.
I never heard of an airport running out of fuel. Especially one catering to high-end politicians and other losers.
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