Originally Posted by
rickair7777
WS can easily pop up with no forecast. Sounds like circumstances to me.
Landing at a non-121/OPSPEC airport is not inherently dangerous if you have the required length and width of runway for the conditions. Big difference is that it may not have ARFF on-site but odds are low that you'll need them.
If a particular airline made a habit of this sort of thing, then there might something wrong with their dispatch process, ie skimping on fuel to save money.
With a previous airline I was flying to ORD with no alternate and good weather. Big thunderstorms popped up over ORD and it closed. Airline wanted me to hold to last possible second before diverting. I could see me getting vectors and then having the airport close again and not really having any options. I diverted, got gas and went to ORD.
Chief Pilot called me from STL and said I should have held till the last minute then tried to get in and that I did not need alternate fuel because the forecast was fine when I left. But, after 28 years of not getting myself into bad situations I don't think that would have been a good time to start. That's for you brave guys. We landed, refueled and got to ORD long before all those planes that held, diverted, refueled, and then went to ORD.