Had some time to kill in FCO today so found a pleasant spot to watch the exotic plumage of the Italian airlines staff at work......
I was slightly surprised to see parallel landing going on on the 2 x 16 runways with departures operating from 25. The end of 25 intersects 16R so most things were well airborne by the time they cross 16. It was obvious that there was plenty of spacing between the landing 16R and departures on 25.
This arrangement is nicely illustrated here;
Google Satellite Image
Why do this, better utilisation? The taxy time to 25 would seem to be much shorter than either of the 16 ops and obviously the ability to use 3 runways would be a big advantage.
I guess also this will also only work in quite low wind conditions otherwise crosswind components will force changes.
Is there anywhere else that operates in a similar manner?