Reduce slot time delays [Archive]

SATCO

6th Jul 2005, 13:37

Thanks chiglet and I agree entirely about giving a PROPER ETD. Check out the other thread on this issue (entitled "ATC - another hour in bed please?" or similar).

As I say in that topic (and backed up by others, thankfully!) no back-door-tricks, no silly stuff, no bending or breaking the rules, FILE a proper EOBT, CHECK your route runs and STICK to the rules.

That way the FMPs and the CFMU can be helped towards helping us ALL out.

By the way, the mechanisms for mitigating ATFCM slot time delays are already there, and they work. I know! I used 'em at airfields, with and for operators, AND at the FMP and for the CFMU.

SATCO

autoflight

7th Jul 2005, 21:32

Most of us are unable to think outside the square. If I give all my techniques, the subject might die. Here is the beginning of the drip feed.
IMHO missing the slot is not the worst case. There will often be legitimate reasons, delays, unavoidable miscalculations etc. The real crime is not being in a position to pick up a slot that somebody else missed. There may be some airfields where this cannot be useful, but there are many where it can be.
Speedy procedure #1: Plan for minimum ground time by reducing or eliminating refuelling time. At departure point, there could be refuelling time to spare, and additional fuel carrying capability. Maybe even enough for next destination. At the destination you may then be ready for an earlier start, being more prepared to catch your own slot or that of someone who missed theirs. Of course we don’t want to always be carrying huge amounts of fuel, but very intelligent fuel choices can give a great turnaround advantage. More ready to pick up a missed slot.

autoflight

13th Jul 2005, 07:53

Speedy procedure #2: If possible, land early at the airfield where your departure will be subject to a slot time. This gives a little more margin for delays.
Speedy procedure #3: Check with your company or agent enroute. Based on your info, a likely fully ready time can be determined and an appropriate slot can be requested.
Speedy procedure #4: Leave through pax on board. Cleaning is then concentrated on the empty seats.

Lon More

13th Jul 2005, 17:03

100% guaranteed to reduce all aviation delays, go by train.

autoflight

14th Jul 2005, 08:06

Speedy procedure #5: If you have the chance, take a standoff parking position rather than an aerobridge. Then your engine start / taxi out will be independent of tug availability. If you are at an aerobridge, there may be a chance to pushback to a position where you can remain ready for no delay startup & taxi.
Speedy procedure #6: Make APU start rather than external air supply.
Speedy procedure #7: Start APU & close doors when pax, baggage & freight on board.
Speedy procedure #8: Listen to slot time extension requests. If you are fully ready, call advising immediate readiness for startup. You might get the missed slot.
Speedy procedure #9: Be prepared to taxi a bit faster if needed.
Speedy procedure #10: If the controller goes out on a limb for you, don't let him/her down. Other pilots in your company also need to be mindfull of this. If your company has a reputation for bending the readiness truth, or not making take-off time or en-route time constaints, don't expect too much co-operation from controllers. Don't forget the human element.

autoflight

20th Jul 2005, 10:15

Pilots obviously have a lot of interest in slot times.

White Hart

20th Jul 2005, 11:42

I certainly miss the good old facility of being able to swap slots allocated to flights on same routes/same destinations without recourse to CFMU. That really was of help, and could sometimes be a life-saver when, traffic-wise, the s**t hit the fan.

For all its proclaimed benefits, I find the current system is too restrictive for its own good. When you're trying to assist in getting planes away, especially when there are backlogs, flexibility is the key to success. I am afraid I do not find the current system as 'flexible' as it once was :ugh:

crjlover

20th Jul 2005, 13:37

I find very stupid the late update concept. Isn't easier to calculate the new CTOT only according the new IOBT?? I really don't understand why should exist the "late update".

niknak

20th Jul 2005, 16:07

Speedy procedure no 11. - Ensure that the cabin tell you they're ready for departure before you tell us that you are.

Speedy procedure no 12 - If you're likely to miss your slot, don't wait until ETD + 9 mins to tell someone, sometimes we may be able to help, sometimes not, but it's a guaranteed method of being refused pushback / taxi clearance if you keep quiet.

Speedy procedure no 13 - Don't tell untruths to get pushback clearance ahead of someone else, (i.e. no tug attached, no ground crew available etc), this is becoming an irritatingly common practice, and achieves nothing other than problems for ATC and other's on the ground and in the air.
In our particular case, because of taxiway weight restrictions, we have to give extended routings to arrivals to allow certain aircraft to taxi and back track the runway. This plan kicks in from the moment we know you are ready for start, any deviation can lead to significant delays.

Standard Noise

20th Jul 2005, 18:20

Swanwick came out with a brilliant new 'Slot Delay Reduction Solution' for us this morning at Bristol......................they cancelled all the slots and put on 5 minute MDI's instead. Good game, good game. :rolleyes:

Still, at least we were able to wind the smartie tube drivers by blaming someone else.

autoflight

20th Jul 2005, 20:13

Thanks Niknak. There are obviously a few more ways to make a slot or to get one. I just hope that some more pilots wander into this forum where they stand to make work a bit easier for themselves and for ATC. White Hart, its now a few years since I was flying around Western europe, so maybe some of the slot time technicalities have been modified. These speedy procedures worked wonderfully then. On a holiday charter it was possible to leave late & return early. Do you think that most of these procedures can still apply? I would be the first to admit that at particularly busy airfields there is not much chance to pick up another's lost slot, and sometimes difficulty in achieving one's own.

flowman

21st Jul 2005, 11:42

I'll second autoflights point. It's very annoying to be told that someone cannot make their slot time 10 or 20 minutes after the event (sometimes as much as an hour goes by without anyone thinking of telling us).
All this means is that a slot is wasted and the flight concerned ends up queing up behind itself!
If a missed slot can be given to somebody else, often the flight that missed the slot can be given the newly vacant slot of the improved flight. Then everybody's happy. :ok:

055166k

21st Jul 2005, 20:44

Sorry old chap, Bristol got hit by the deadly X-flow procedure. This was put on by the off-going night watch. All hell broke loose at 0700 local.
What is the X-flow?.......well it is a genuine flow procedure for a start......absolutely hated by operational controllers but loved by supervisors and flow managers. The sector is flowed to capacity plus 10% with short term overload of 30-40%....but aerodrome departures within the sector are completely excluded [ hence X].
The operational sector team are advised to issue clearances to aerodromes on a tactical basis thereby absolving "flow" of any responsibility. Unfortunately it may be necessary to stop all such flights for an indefinite period if there is just no space available, and on the 20th there wasn't.
With your help we can ban this procedure, we've tried and we can't.....management love it!

flowman

21st Jul 2005, 21:10

055166K

"absolutely hated by operational controllers but loved by supervisors and flow managers"

London flow managers might love it (I cannot speak for them) but we hate it as much as you do.
This type of procedure disproportionately penalises certain traffic flows, that goes completely against CFMU flow management principles.
It might well be loved by managers because delays incurred by the affected flights do not appear in the delay statistics.
Just to keep the record straight.

flower

21st Jul 2005, 21:11

055166K

I never knew such a procedure existed, I shall highlight it to my WM tomorrow morning when we go on duty. All well and good stopping departures as a short term measure however with nowhere to park the arriving aircraft due stands full of aircraft not able to depart it shows poor overall planning.

Where on earth did this form of flow management come from ?

Standard Noise

22nd Jul 2005, 10:34

And more to the point, why should it be affecting flights which depart UK airports so badly? Why were all our BCN's affected and does that mean that some other airfield was able to punt off all their traffic (routing via BCN) at our expense? It even affected our EXM and WOT deps as they got caught in the ground snarl up. And all for the sake of a quick phone call/notam from the LACC WM on duty to let us know.
The problem at our end was that no one told us about the 5 min MDI's through BCN so we were starting the a/c only to be told we couldn't have any airways clearances.
With our tiny airfield, it caused problems getting the inbounds onto stands as the outbounds were blocking the entrances to the cul de sacs.

We're not heartless b***ards at BRS, we can accept the odd flow restriction, but it's nice to be let in on the joke at the time.

Oh there coming to take us away, ha, ha!

055166k

22nd Jul 2005, 11:15

I think you all have a right to know if these measures are being used.....sometimes the operational sector team aren't told until too late. BCN northbound will be affected by 5X, and g*d help you all if they use 6X on Saturday for southbounds.....how do you think we feel when we know you have traffic snarled-up at the holding point and we have to stop it because there is nowhere for it to go....and when you tell us it has a tight slot with no hope of another for an hour......we feel gutted, and totally let down by our own managers.
As I said before.......make some waves!
My opinion is not as high as a pile of dog-sh*t....I only work here.

30W

22nd Jul 2005, 12:54

MDI's have been a UK tool for an awful long time. It's only the last couple of years however that I have noticed regular bad restrictions because of them.

They should, in my opinion only be used as a short term tool of reducing sector traffic loading. NATS however seem to use them far more frequently, personally I think to massage their own delay figures as of course no sector CTOT restriction applies or is recorded against them.

As importantly, Flowman take note, I have had CTOT's based on downroute sector capacity. Sitting no.5 or so at the hold, find London have applied MDI of say 1/5 and so suffer 25 min delay - depart well outside my CFMU CTOT, but airfields hands tied as locally the MDI takes precedence!! To us pilots it makes a total mockery of the system, someone applies the rules of the system one day, ignores them another day.

A CFMU CTOT is transparent to ALL, application of London MDI's certainly is not, and produces a little curtain to hide behind!!

30W

flowman

22nd Jul 2005, 14:14

Note has already been taken.
Departing ouyside CTOT is just sticking the fingers up to the controller working the regulated sector down the route and saying "my problem is more important than yours, so up yours".
Of course London are not the only unit to impose MDIs, its fairly common practice, but MDIs should not take precedence over CFMU slots. They completely ignore the big picture and, as we have seen from the comments above, they create more problems than they solve.
The bottom line is that they hide delay. Politics rules again.

Exel

22nd Jul 2005, 16:31

Why penalise 50 aircraft with flow regulations and CTOT's when a 1/5 MDI will perhaps only restrict 10% of those and usually they'll all be from the same departing airfield. If the regulation was applied, chances are that those 10% would get delayed an awful lot longer than they may have been waiting around for a 1/5.

MDI's have been in use for a number of years and are only used as a short term measure. Yes, they are used on a daily basis and yes no official stats exist for them, but they are never applied on a whim.

As for comments about sectors teams not being advised I dispute that. The MDI is 99.9% of the time applied after consulation with the LAS. If he/she then decides to keep it from the rest of the team, then that's a mis-management issue.

"The operational sector team are advised to issue clearances to aerodromes on a tactical basis thereby absolving "flow" of any responsibility".

That's because the las/tactical/planner have a live radar screen in front of them and are best placed to decide upon accepting or rejecting more traffic on a sort term basis. Only in exceptional circumstances will a clearance be witheld for more than a few minutes.