Flight Crew Last 90 Days 111; Flight Crew Total 9045; Flight Crew Type 1469
Situational Awareness; Workload
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence; Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
Flight Crew Diverted
Human Factors; Company Policy; Procedure
During flight planning for [our] flight from [mainland U.S. airport] to ZZZZ; we noted the dispatchers' notes 'Captain call dispatcher for flight plan briefing.'  Prior to calling the dispatcher we reviewed the Operational Flight Plan (OFP); weather; NOTAMS; and maintenance history of the airplane.  During this review we noticed that the ZZZZ forecast called for very strong gusty winds for many airports within 200 miles of ZZZZ. We called the dispatcher who advised us that he did not have time to note all the areas of turbulence on the flight plan and to avoid a delay in publishing the flight papers he added the note to call dispatch for a briefing.  We suspected that in addition to not being able to note all of the areas of turbulence enroute that he may have been unable to devote the time he would like to completely review the dispatch of this flight.  This seems to be a reoccurring issue with many of the dispatches we are seeing these days.  Dispatchers are simply overloaded with too many flights at one time to properly address the issues surrounding each flight completely.We accepted the flight plan with the planned fuel load and an alternate of ZZZZ1; which is 266NM from ZZZZ and would require 21;400 lbs. of fuel to reach from ZZZZ.  [Our original plan showed] an arrival fuel of 41;700 lbs. at ZZZZ.  This plan results in our flight having no more than 30 minutes of hold in the ZZZZ terminal area before needing to divert to ZZZZ1 or coordinate another plan of operation.While enroute for over 9 hours we updated both the observation and forecast for ZZZZ and other surrounding airports.   We did not receive any pro-active communications from dispatch or the ZZZZ station regarding the deteriorating operating conditions at the airport.  This fact is disappointing given that we have state of the art communications equipment all functioning properly; yet we have no idea that anyone but us is looking at what is being forecast in ZZZZ.  If others in the company were looking at the potential impact of this wind event on ZZZZ operations; they were not sharing any of that information with us.Upon arrival in ZZZZ airspace we were given holding at three different fixes and each hold resulted in holding times that exceeded the EFC that was originally issued.  We advised dispatch of each of these holds and our fuel state via ACARS.  After the third hold we were now beyond our 30 minutes of holding capability and we advised ATC that we were now at minimum fuel.  Many other aircraft inbound for ZZZZ were also in these holding patterns awaiting clearance for approach.  We observed that the terminal controller was clearly 'task saturated' when one of the many aircraft on frequency reported leaving his assigned holding altitude due to a TCAS Resolution Advisory (RA) with another aircraft in the same holding pattern as them at the same altitude.After not hearing from dispatch; despite sending 3 holding reports via ACARS; we contacted dispatch via SATCOM because we were now not able to continue naming ZZZZ1 as a viable alternate; due to an anticipated low fuel state if we diverted to ZZZZ1.  Dispatch advised us that they suggest we consider ZZZZZ1 or ZZZZ2 as potential diversion alternates.  We advised them of our intention to use ZZZZ3 as our alternate due to favorable ceiling; visibility; wind direction [and] velocity; and close proximity.  We were very surprised when the dispatcher advised us that ZZZZ3 was not an advisable alternate due to the fact that the airport could only accept one diversion and there was already a diversion aircraft on the ground in ZZZZ3.  It appears that the dispatcher is ONLY considering the ability of [our airline] to efficiently process one diversion at a time at that location.  However; as a result of our three holding patterns and that ZZZZ ATC had instructed us to hold for a fourth time (for an indefinite amount of time) due to the need to 'turn the airport around' from a runway 16 operationto a runway 34 operation; we advised ATC we could not accept the further holding due to low fuel; and [were] requesting clearance to ZZZZ3.  We also advised dispatch that we were proceeding to ZZZZ3 despite their objection to that course of action.  We landed safely in ZZZZ3 and taxied to a remote location and shut down.Our dispatcher began to flight plan us for a 45 minute flight back to ZZZZ with 2:30 of fuel remaining upon landing at ZZZZ.  Since this was a 3-man crew we asked dispatch to contact the FAR 117 desk to determine if we were legal to continue.  The 117 desk quickly and correctly noted that we were unable to continue due to having 14 minutes of available time before exceeding our FAR block limit of 13:00.  The flight cancelled in ZZZZ3 and also resulted in an outbound flight cancellation from ZZZZ.  The aircraft was ferried from ZZZZ3 to [the U.S.] the following day.This diversion highlights a lack of communications and information flow between station operations; dispatch; and the flight crew which stands in stark contrast to the level of pro-active communications I have seen at [our airline] back in the 1980's and 1990's.  We clearly should have had more information about the impact of the winds; number of go-arounds; and acceptance rate on ZZZZ operations so we could make the best decision possible.  Effective communication regarding operational events such as this wind event is simply not occurring today and in just this one incident resulted in considerable operational disruptions to our customers; tens of thousands of dollars of added cost and significant lost revenue.
[Report narrative contained no additional information.]
A flight crew reported considerable difficulty getting timely weather and other operational updates on their flight to an international destination.