Yesterday at ORT INT between 16.00 and 19.00 (local) only one runway was in operation at ORT (WHY I ASK ? WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM)
Due to 1 runway in use (03L) for take off and departures two of our incomming smaller light twin turbine aircraft were Held at Okpit.
The king air 200 for 45 min and our BE19 for 40 min.What seemed totally frustrating is the schedule trafic were not even held or possibly were held but for a few minutes only.
The above delay is not acceptable on Clear VFR late afternoon EVEN WITH ONE runway.It transpires that we were late on our arrival slots.Thats called charter, often you are in the bush somewhere and you cant re book an arrival slot. Pax arrive late, thats charter.It seemed that because we were late its now time to penalize the the small boys and lets get the slot arrival sheet out,blow the dust off it and use it.(I would love to see ATNS hold a SAA flight from New york for 45 min-JA right!! .Most days its hardly referred to and we never have problems, its simply a guide to manage the amount of incomming trafic.
Please could somebody at Atns provide us with some insight into the delays yesterday or was it a case of short staffed because everybody was busy watching the cricket?
and that was a waste of time as well!!!
It must be said that normally the Area and Radar pool offer a excellent service in general, perhaps somebody was having a bad day.!