ATC Delays

amjon

Pilot and A Half (for now
I flew out of MCO Friday night bound for LGA. I've never had any kind of take off delay from MCO once we've left the gate. This week we left the gate probably 20 minutes late (not sure why), then we taxied all the way out nearly to the runway and they made an announcement we would have a 30 minute delay before we received take off clearance. I saw probably 6 planes go around us during that time and take off, so don't think it was really a hold up on MCOs side. Would they have delayed us on the ground for a new time slot into LGA? (Out of LGA we only had one plane ahead of us on the ground and landed 20 minutes early in MCO.)
 
Would they have delayed us on the ground for a new time slot into LGA? (Out of LGA we only had one plane ahead of us on the ground and landed 20 minutes early in MCO.)
Yep.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_delay_program

The FAA is the big bouncer that says "Woah, we're over capacity, we have to stop letting so many people in for a little while."

This week we left the gate probably 20 minutes late (not sure why)
They probably knew they had a wheels up time and didn't want to load everyone up to sit on the plane for no reason. EDCTs can change on a whim too. We've had flights that we thought weren't going anywhere for an hour or so only to have the EDCTs get updated and surprise, their wheels up is now in 8 minutes and we have to get all the passengers that wandered off rounded up and onto the plane.
 
Yes, it's very normal. LGA was running a ground delay program. This website has a real-time look at all delays going on in the system.

http://www.fly.faa.gov/ois/

If you happen to check it often you'll see LGA in there all the time.

Now there are numerous reasons and scenarios for why you'd leave the gate late and/or sit by the runway during one. Not all of them are controlled by the pilot. You'd have to ask the pilots on your flight what happened that day if you really wanted to know.
 
Had a flight out of Tinker AFB in Oklahoma once that got to the hold short and was informed we had an EDCT. Have to admit, entire flight crew was pretty confused by acronym, and still confused when was explained to us what it was. We were planning on flying straight out to NAS Pax River and Washingon Center had placed the restriction to help with the rush hour traffic into the area.
 
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