Delays
Love your show! Listen as often as possible. I feel the need for
clarification since so many travelers just don't know. I'm an air
traffic controller at Syr Tower but I've also worked at Houston and
New York Regional Centers. Yeah, yeah, don't ask me about the stress.
It's something we live with. As far as I'm concerned, my job is no
more stressful than a stay-at-home mom trying to get dinner ready,
make sure all the wash is done, get Susie off to her piano lesson and
Frank picked up from his soccer practice, pay the bills and then act
supportive to a grumpy husband coming home from work at an unfriendly
climb-the-ladder corporate structure.
But I digress. My real point is about airline delays. Often when
people sit aboard flights waiting for takeoff, they hear the typical
pilot remarks about an "atc" ground enforced delay. "We'll get goin'
as soon as they let us" is an often-heard remark. Well, I'm tired of
gettin' the blame. Believe me, if we could launch we would. The last
thing I want to do is explain gate-hold procedures with a pilot when
he knows what is causing the delays. And you being the "savvy
traveler", I'm sure you know what causes the delays. I'll pretend an
underling gets this email though and doesn't have a clue so I'll
spell it out. If it's not the controllers, and not the weather, than
what could it be? The airlines. Wait! How can the airlines be the
cause of the most worried about event in air travel? Well here's
why...it's called AAR or airport arrival rate. Every airport has one,
even Joe's County Airpark with it's 3000 ft grass strip, though he
probably doesn't publish his AAR. But every airport has an AAR. The
airlines know what it is, and know that the maximum AAR for a given
airport is based on optimum conditions. Great weather, no
construction at the airport, no de-icing, no military operations or
NASA space shots, no turbulence, no wind shear, no cross winds, and
land-and-hold-short operations are being used. If all of these things
are going well, then the max AAR can be met. Unfortunately, the
planets don't line up everyday. We have thunderstorms, we have wind
problems-specifically in the NY area because you have 3 major
airports all within a dozen miles of each other and sometimes the
wind requires stopping departures at one airport so others can get
off at another airport. Sometimes icing and low ceilings cause
extended spaces between arrivals. Sometimes the space shuttle
launches and different routes are effected. Sometimes the AAR is
lowered because of these problems. Well, Mr. Savvy Traveler, this
happens nearly every day. Yup, on most days, we have some type of
constriction. But the airlines don't care and so they plan on getting
62 arrivals into Boston this afternoon, and why not? That's the AAR,
isn't it? Oh, you say there's a line of thunderstorms driving through
central Mass, with winds changing from the southeast to the west? IFR
conditions?
The AAR just went to 38 but the problem is, we have 62 flights
scheduled to arrive at Logan in the next hour. What are the other 24
going to do? Hold of course, but what about all of the other arrivals
going to do in the next hr? My point exactly. A ground stop is
initiated, a delay program follows. See, if you remember the Jack
Lemmon classic- "The Out of Towners", you'll remember how they held
over NY for a long time. That doesn't happen much anymore because it
makes more sense to hold people on the ground and not use up gas
circling over your destination. But the pilot almost always says
"sorry folks but ATC has us hanging out hear at the gate...enjoy some
free drinks on u and I hope they'll work this little snafoo out..."
Right. I'd love to hear a pilot say: "folks, we can't get going yet
because Atlanta has a typical afternoon with thunderstorms and wind
shear and unfortunately for you guys aboard this flight, our company
has scheduled 60 flights into Atlanta but they can't take but 45. We
hafta wait for a slot time and I hope you all make your connections.
Thank you for flying "we're-not-to-blame airline." So, you see, I
just wanna pass the buck to the next dealer. We're not to blame
either.
Mike
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