Originally Posted by
Capn Bloggs
That's pretty naive, Joe. Do you really expect multiple RPT aircraft could/would stick to their schedule plus or minus a couple of minutes so the flow would work with no slowdowns or re-sequencing?
Losing time in straight lines is better, fuel burn wise, than holding patterns. Nicer for the pax, too.
When I offer the choice of speeds and vectors or hold a large majority of pilots take the vectors.
Joe, even if everyone pushes back on time how does that account for different runways for departure and arrival, winds and Haughtney picking up 30 minutes over his 13+ hours in the air? Not to mention multiple aircraft scheduled to arrive at the same time.
The point is a dozen aircraft can end up all trying to land within a few minutes so there will be delays just because of the variables not accounted for by scheduling.