ATC is not the real cause of delays

saxman

saxman

Well-Known Member
I thought about this a lot when I was based in NYC. My airline has tried to implement smart cost index, meaning to go slow or fast. Few people follow it of course. Good long article though. I also thought about this when we had to take a huge reroute, BNA-ORD only for a small cluster of storm cells southeast of ORD. Of course we could have gone direct, but center wouldn't let anyone have short cuts. So lots of people missed their connection. It really fun explaining that to passengers though! "But the weather here and there is beautiful! Why are you lying to us?!" :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Discuss

https://www.forbes.com/sites/curren...he-real-cause-of-airline-delays/#2b80e9932c37
 
The guy lost me when he said my aircraft can be programmed to cross a fix at a specific time and my throttles will do all the work for me.

First, that's not how it work. Second, flying too slowly hasn't worked out so well for Skywest.
 
What's his solution for when the guy at the front of the line is told to slow and the guy at the back is told to go fast? Not always room to go around people.
 
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NovemberEcho said:
What's his solution for when the guy at the front of the line is told to slow and the guy at the back is told to go fast? Not always room to go around people.
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Wouldn't work in the terminal area, but it does work when farther out. When you're told "normal speed" you do just that.

jtrain609 said:
The guy lost me when he said my aircraft can be programmed to cross a fix at a specific time and my throttles will do all the work for me.

First, that's not how it work. Second, flying too slowly hasn't worked out so well for Skywest.
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The technology is out there. Of course CRJ's are a little harder to do that, but it's possible.
 
So the guy was an airline pilot for a period of time.

LOL.

That doesn't equal "expert". Only on Iraqi Dinars and ZEE GOLT!
 
What's the difference between slowing down a little 500 miles out, or a lot 200 miles out? This could be fun though, if the airlines manage it, airline A just needs to get in line ahead of a string of airline B and C arrivals, then it becomes the "right" plane to slow down.

I blame trying to put 10lbs of jets into a 5lb airport.
 
Jett said:
What's the difference between slowing down a little 500 miles out, or a lot 200 miles out? This could be fun though, if the airlines manage it, airline A just needs to get in line ahead of a string of airline B and C arrivals, then it becomes the "right" plane to slow down.

I blame trying to put 10lbs of jets into a 5lb airport.
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500 miles out there is typically less congestion, nose to tail, headed toward your destination.

200 miles out to a major airport and you are either in the middle of a gaggle writing my name in the sky or are falling right inline and possibly have a speed assigned.

400+ miles is the place to be playing with your own speed.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk
 
BWER said:
500 miles out there is typically less congestion, nose to tail, headed toward your destination.

200 miles out to a major airport and you are either in the middle of a gaggle writing my name in the sky or are falling right inline and possibly have a speed assigned.

400+ miles is the place to be playing with your own speed.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk
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400 miles? I don't get legs that long! I agree with you on the spacing issues. I just wonder what actual time savings there could be.
 
Jett said:
400 miles? I don't get legs that long! I agree with you on the spacing issues. I just wonder what actual time savings there could be.
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It's crazy sometimes, when I was at ZMP we'd have to get 30 MIT spacing over...South Dakota for N90 airport landers. Seemed dumb to pilots (to us as well), but the reasoning is because the streams all blended together at some point down the line and the downstream centers placed miles in trail restrictions on us way out over the flyover states. Heck some days, TMU would call down to the area.."I need 60 between such and such"...WTF.Ok then.
 
On a PERFECT day. Properly choreographed. You can fit your 10 lbs of jets into a 5 lbs of pavement airport. Throw in weather. Throw in aircraft screwing up spacing (that is only human nature) for any number of reasons. Aircraft slow to vacate runway causing a go around. Aircraft misses radio call for a turn or a takeoff clearance, or a taxi clearance in a jammed alley. Aircraft taxiing slow. Aircraft doesn't have performance numbers yet. Aircraft has flow time to New York or other airport with adverse issues. Aircraft misses flow time. Throw in a jammed alleyway while trying to push. Throw in a maintenance issue, baggage issue, or passenger issue causing you to sit on a gate that another airplane that arrived needs so they have to sit in the penalty box. Throw in ice and you have a line for de-icing, and more cautious taxi operations. All these things and more happen on any given day, and you have a recipe for delays. It's not ATC's fault. It's not the weather's fault. It's not the pilot's fault. It's not the airline's fault. It's simply a culmination of many different factors which are out of control of other people/administrations at any given point.

When it comes down to it. They should plan for these delays on an average and buffer the block time accordingly. That's what airlines do, and it's in no way a perfect system. On one day 10 lbs of jets could be going into an airport than can handle only 5 lbs of jets. On other days, 10 lbs of jets are going into that same airport that on other days could handle 15 lbs of jets. So everyone surmises that on average the airport can handle 10 lbs of jets and crams 10 lbs of jets onto the airport no matter what it actually can take.

TLDR - The article lost me after saying it's specifically one adminstration's fault.
 
Ozelot said:
It's crazy sometimes, when I was at ZMP we'd have to get 30 MIT spacing over...South Dakota for N90 airport landers. Seemed dumb to pilots (to us as well), but the reasoning is because the streams all blended together at some point down the line and the downstream centers placed miles in trail restrictions on us way out over the flyover states. Heck some days, TMU would call down to the area.."I need 60 between such and such"...WTF.Ok then.
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It doesn't help that TMU tries to jam everyone in at once with a 50-60/hour but the hour before and the hour after we have nothing. It's like couldn't they have just spread them out a little more over that 3 hour span? Add in some wind on the base (very common for us to have a 50kt tail wind on the base) and we have to spread our final out twice as much as usual, run out of airspace, and everyone's holding. I've never seen TMU earn their paycheck.
 
NovemberEcho said:
It doesn't help that TMU tries to jam everyone in at once with a 50-60/hour but the hour before and the hour after we have nothing. It's like couldn't they have just spread them out a little more over that 3 hour span? Add in some wind on the base (very common for us to have a 50kt tail wind on the base) and we have to spread our final out twice as much as usual, run out of airspace, and everyone's holding. I've never seen TMU earn their paycheck.
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Push banks. Everyone comes into the hub at one time, planes sit on the ground for an hour, everyone leaves the hub at one time.

And in Newark, maybe that works with all the United traffic and only the United traffic coming and going during those banks.

Until the international push starts, and now you've got "Mr. Foreign Airline Pilot Guy" (my favorite Newark ground controller line), Scandi, Ethiad, The Scab Wagon (Norwegian), Speedbird, Virgin, The Germans and every other airline trying to make a mad dash across the pond IN ADDITION TO United's entire 757/767 fleet trying to leave within a few hours of each other.
 
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