ATC is not the real cause of delays

jtrain609 said:
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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You can add in Emirates now too! They started flying here a couple weeks ago. Only once a day for now but they're going to add more I hear.
 
A lot of it is ATC too...ask Oakland Center/LA Center about "Miles in Trail" between hand offs when it gets busy. But yes, airline banks, slower cruise speeds, lack of gates, and really lack of staff all lead to delays. It doesn't help that airlines often don't have to staffing to use open gates and planes sit out on the pavement blocking things and burning gas. A certain airline who often has 3-5 planes on the ground decided to leave their okay vendor for a new and cheaper vendor and staff for 2.5 planes(yes, .5) because...why not? Sometimes they'll send the pilots ACARS messages to slow the hell down when we rabble at the airline about having to hold a plane in the ramp for 35 minutes because of their staffing. All these little things add up.
 
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ChasenSFO said:
A lot of it is ATC too...ask Oakland Center/LA Center about "Miles in Trail" between hand offs when it gets busy. But yes, airline banks, slower cruise speeds, lack of gates, and really lack of staff all lead to delays. It doesn't help that airlines often don't have to staffing to use open gates and planes sit out on the pavement blocking things and burning gas. A certain airline who often has 3-5 planes on the ground decided to leave their okay vendor for a new and cheaper vendor and staff for 2.5 planes(yes, .5) because...why not? Sometimes they'll send the pilots ACARS messages to slow the hell down when we rabble at the airline about having to hold a plane in the ramp for 35 minutes because of their staffing. All these little things add up.
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Everyone uses miles in Trail. This is to space the arrivals out because each airport is getting fed from multiple directions. A 20 mile in Trail from Arrival A allows someone from Arrival B and C to fit in that gap. Same concept for departures along the same route or SID
 
NovemberEcho said:
Everyone uses miles in Trail. This is to space the arrivals out because each airport is getting fed from multiple directions. A 20 mile in Trail from Arrival A allows someone from Arrival B and C to fit in that gap. Same concept for departures along the same route or SID
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The way it was explained to me recently by guys at ZOA and ZLA sure made it seem like staffing is creating airborne/ground delays beyond the cluster cuss of LAX/SFO on GDP days, namely due to extra spacing between arrivals.
 
ChasenSFO said:
The way it was explained to me recently by guys at ZOA and ZLA sure made it seem like staffing is creating airborne/ground delays beyond the cluster cuss of LAX/SFO on GDP days, namely due to extra spacing between arrivals.
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Well yeah, when you put it that way it's cause some facilities (ZOA/ZLA/N90) are too short staffed to de-combine all the positions so that means 1 guy is working 2+ sectors and there's only so much traffic one person can handle.
 
ChasenSFO said:
The way it was explained to me recently by guys at ZOA and ZLA sure made it seem like staffing is creating airborne/ground delays beyond the cluster cuss of LAX/SFO on GDP days, namely due to extra spacing between arrivals.
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I see it a lot at LAX. Flow into LAX for no other reason than the controllers got behind in the volume they could handle. Clear blue skies and winds out of the west. You'll still see flow.
 
JustinS said:
I see it a lot at LAX. Flow into LAX for no other reason than the controllers got behind in the volume they could handle. Clear blue skies and winds out of the west. You'll still see flow.
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Clear blue skies usually equate to more volume too. Not just commercial but corportesnand GA as well.
 
This discussion is exactly why it would be a horrible idea for "the best pilot" to run ATC. Don't get me wrong it is a good discussion and I am a pilot myself, but unless you have spent significant amount of time in an ARTCC or large TRACON, you really have no idea about the big picture, even if you think you do. 30 MIT to N.90 airports in ZMP is perfectly reasonable when you consider ZOB is combining that feed with two others to pass 30 MIT to ZNY which is going to combine three other feeds from ZOB and ZDC into a stream which will then be broken up by destination and sorted out by downstream ZNY sectors and N.90, while N.90 sequences streams from ZNY from the south and west and ZBW from the north and east. And lets not forget ocean traffic which has no flow program. What is really amazing is how smoothly it all runs. Canada doesn't have jack on 'merica, and neither does anyone else for that matter.
 
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