Commercial Fixed Wing
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Type 1736
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Company Policy
Due to weather we diverted to BFF which was the alternate as listed on our flight plan. We had several problems with BFF. We were the 6th aircraft on the ground to divert there at the time. BFF is an uncontrolled airport. This is the biggest problem for aircraft diverting. The aircraft on approach cannot land until the aircraft on the ground call in. This causes big delays in the air and for diverting aircraft with low fuel that's not good. BFF has no gates. And there was no option to allow passengers to get off the plane for delays. It took 2 hrs to get gas. It could have taken a lot longer. Unicom was the only source of communications. There was only one person answering the radio which was not very often. Very bad communications there. ACARS has no reception at BFF. This adds another layer of problems and delays to get information; get a flight plan; weights; etc. With no ACARS and since no door opened; VNAV did not work properly on descent to ZZZ1. And we kept getting error messages while airborne asking us to open a door to reset the system. I do not believe BFF should be used as a regular alternate airport. If anything else this can cause large fines due to ground delays without egress options. When we finally got to destination we arrived at gate and waited 53 minutes with the parking brake set. Here are the times of this flight:ZZZ-BFFOUT XA:01OFF XA:20ON XD:41 IN XE:01 (parked at remote spot)FUEL 7300 lbsBFF-ZZZ1OUT XG:12OFF XG:22ON XH:02IN XI:14FOB 11000 lbs (Estimated)Also; do the math. The passengers were on the plane for well over 7 hrs when we arrived at the gate. They then had to wait another 53 min to get off. I called Operations several times. This is embarrassing.
Air carrier Captain reported questioning the wisdom of using BFF as an alternate with no tower; no gates; one frequency for CTAF and UNICOM; and no ACARS reception.