A319
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 150; Flight Crew Type 3000
Communication Breakdown; Human-Machine Interface
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Diverted; Flight Crew Landed As Precaution
Aircraft; Company Policy
[During initial climb we received an] ECAM for a skin vent fault (which was a deferred item). Lots of noise created by the wired open outflow valve. On climbout; we were unable to control cabin altitude. The First Officer worked through the ECAM and tried to get control of the cabin with manual pressurization control. Both auto and manual controllers were unable to keep cabin altitude below 9;000 feet. Leveled aircraft off at 10;000 feet to work the problem. Was unable to reach Dispatch throughout this process. This created the most concern of the whole event. This is the second event this month that; when trying to work through a problem with Dispatch; I was unable to reach them. I feel this is unacceptable.We requested frequencies to talk with Maintenance Control but never received a frequency. We never were able to talk with Maintenance. As we could not troubleshoot the problem; and could not reach Company or Maintenance; we opted to land overweight. We ran the overweight landing checklist. We did send an [ACARS] message to Dispatch that we were diverting and had them provide performance data for [the overweight landing].Landing uneventful. Less that 100 fpm down on touchdown.
An A319 flight crew was unable to communicate with Dispatch or Maintenance to resolve a pressurization problem and ultimately diverted to an enroute station.