Narrative:

We were cruising at FL340 proceeding westbound direct to zun. There was a thunderstorm ahead and I requested a 10 degree left turn to avoid the cell from kansas city center. The controller said to contact abq center on and added something like 'he'll be the one to give you that.' upon switching to abq center; radio traffic was heavy. Abq was dealing with multiple airplanes deviating around weather in the area. We commenced a 10 degree left turn to avoid a red portion of the cell depicted on our radar ahead of us. When I was finally able to check in on frequency; I informed the controller we had to turn left off course to avoid weather. He instructed us to not deviate unless we had clearance and to not go further left of where we were and he also gave us a new squawk code. I read back the squawk code and informed him that we were already turning back to the right and were approximately 3 miles left of our previous course. The controller then instructed us to maintain present heading. On TCAS we were showing two airplanes 2000 ft above us; one 2000 ft below within 20 miles. One airplane was also at FL340 at around 30-40 miles to our left. They requested a left turn for weather avoidance (which I am assuming is for the same cell we just avoided). The controller informed them that to do so they would have to either climb or descend. They elected to descend and the controller cleared them to FL320 with a good rate through FL330. The other flight was never closer than 25-30 miles to the left of our position. The controller later gave us direct to zun; EAGUL3 arrival into phx. There was no mention of a conflict from abq center. I believe what caused the problem was my inability to contact abq center in a timely manner due to heavy radio transmissions. I had to make a decision to avoid the cell for the safe operation of our flight taking into account the information I had on our weather radar and TCAS.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier at FL340; initially with ZKC; requested weather deviations and was instructed to change to ZAB for the deviation. Unable to contact ZAB; the reporter initiated turns around weather resulting in ATC questioning turns.

Narrative: We were cruising at FL340 proceeding westbound direct to ZUN. There was a thunderstorm ahead and I requested a 10 degree left turn to avoid the cell from Kansas City Center. The Controller said to contact ABQ Center on and added something like 'He'll be the one to give you that.' Upon switching to ABQ Center; radio traffic was heavy. ABQ was dealing with multiple airplanes deviating around weather in the area. We commenced a 10 degree left turn to avoid a red portion of the cell depicted on our radar ahead of us. When I was finally able to check in on frequency; I informed the Controller we had to turn left off course to avoid weather. He instructed us to not deviate unless we had clearance and to not go further left of where we were and he also gave us a new squawk code. I read back the squawk code and informed him that we were already turning back to the right and were approximately 3 miles left of our previous course. The Controller then instructed us to maintain present heading. On TCAS we were showing two airplanes 2000 FT above us; one 2000 FT below within 20 miles. One airplane was also at FL340 at around 30-40 miles to our left. They requested a left turn for weather avoidance (which I am assuming is for the same cell we just avoided). The Controller informed them that to do so they would have to either climb or descend. They elected to descend and the Controller cleared them to FL320 with a good rate through FL330. The other flight was never closer than 25-30 miles to the left of our position. The Controller later gave us direct to ZUN; EAGUL3 arrival into PHX. There was no mention of a conflict from ABQ Center. I believe what caused the problem was my inability to contact ABQ Center in a timely manner due to heavy radio transmissions. I had to make a decision to avoid the cell for the safe operation of our flight taking into account the information I had on our weather radar and TCAS.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.