A319
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Total 17000
Situational Awareness
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors; Weather
During descent to ZZZ1; a line of thunderstorms moved over the field. I requested to hold east of the field for the weather to improve. I turned the controls over to the First Officer and attempted to contact Dispatch on the aircell phone. It would not initialize. So I sent an ACARS message to Dispatch and asked if they still wanted us to go to ZZZ2 if we needed to divert. Dispatch replied yes to ZZZ2 alternate. I then asked Approach if we could get vectors around the north side of weather to get on the west side of the airport. They said they could vector us around the north side through a soft area; but they were limited by the restricted area. We started the vectors; but had to turn back due to turbulence and lightning. At this point I requested the divert to ZZZ2 and was given a north heading and climb to FL320. ATC then gave us a route. When we put this in the box it showed 394 miles to destination and arrival fuel of .7K LBS of fuel remaining. At this point we had 6200 LBS of fuel remaining. KZZZ was 35 miles away and I checked the orientation chart and it showed ZZZ as a suitable alternate. We also looked at KMAF. It was also a suitable alternate; but by our rough fuel calculations we would have to burn into our reserve fuel. I then sent Dispatch our intentions to divert to ZZZ. They said go back to ZZZ1 the weather was fine. So I asked ATC for ZZZ1 weather and it was still unacceptable. We would still have to penetrate the line of weather and my thought was that if we weren't able to land our fuel state would become critical. I then told Dispatch we were landing ZZZ. On downwind to land we received two ACARS messages from Dispatch. The first stated ZZZ was not authorized for A319. The second stated ZZZ could handle our flight. We had approximately 4400 LBS of fuel at this point and were committed to landing. An uneventful landing and taxi to ramp followed. We refueled and continued flight to ZZZ1.1. I should have declared an emergency when ZZZ2 became unsuitable. 2. ZZZ2 is not a viable alternate if weather prevents a direct routing. Pilots are also limited on options due to the restricted areas. ZZZ3 or ZZZ4 would be a better choice or at least listed as a second alternate.3. I was unable to locate the authorized airports tab in the iPad. After landing I was able to locate it as a sub tab under the orientation charts tab. Authorized airports need to have its own tab. I normally have these critical tabs book marked but mine dropped out on the last revision.
A319 Captain reported they diverted because of weather at destination and realized later it was not an authorized airport for his fleet.