Replies from ATC/Pilots or anyone else please on this one!

[Newcastle_director]

Something for people to think about:

Afew months back I was on my way back to Newcastle from Naples-Italy- on board an airtours A320 aircraft. We were delayed nearly 2 hours and worst of all, we were stuck on board the aircraft all that time!
Here are a serious of events that happened that day:
We began our push back and engines began to start and to my suprise i heard the engines shutting down a few minutes later and we then began moving forward into our parking stand.
No sooner was the Captain on the PA system to us, explaining that were going to have to wait a while because runway 24 is in use at the moment and we need runway 06 to depart because of it's downhill slope as we are too heavy to depart using runway 24, and Air Traffic thought we were using runway 24.
So we waited our 10 mins and he got back to us sayin unfortunately we've missed our slot time as our push back tug was too slow in pushing the adjacent Britannia 757 out from it's stand, and he explained we'd have to wait upto 30minutes to get a new slot time from Brussels.
30 minutes had passed and he explained we'd have to wait an hour and 10 minutes before we can begin our homeward journey to Newcastle.
Eventually we got pushed back, started take-off roll and climbed on the Teano 5A Sid taking us over Mount Vesuvious and Pompeii!
Was this delay typical of a busy summers day in Europe or was it an unusual occurance?!?

1 more thing to think about is i visited the flight deck at the top of our descent, and strangely enough we were about 30 DME to Honiley VOR routing via HON-POL-GASKO-TILNI to land at EGNT on runway 25! You will be asking your selves, "well whats unusual about that....?"
Well we departed Newcastle on runway 07, which held us back about 10 mins at Newcastle, because we were too heavy to get airborne on the active 25. Any way we took off and made a slight right turn out towards the north sea towards FAMBO which to me would seem the quickest way to Italy. Any way on our way back i was assuming we'd be arriving that way via DOGGA-SILVA-FAMBO- Newcastle but we must have gone the "long way round" and cut across France and north throught london-Birmingham and Manchester and then towards Newcastle!

Could anyone, from either side of the Radar screen, fill me in on why we went, possible the longest way back to Newcastle!?!?!?

All the best and Happy New Year!

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Andy Thompson

[Grandad Flyer]

I'm not familiar with either Newcastle or Naples, or the specific waypoints but I can give a general answer.
Firstly though, I take it from your post that you are neither a pilot or ATCO so I don't know how well you understand the waypoints, the airways systems and so on.
The fact that they were too heavy to take off on one runway, well it would have to be a short runway and/or hot day to prevent an A320 taking off on a short flight like that.
But if you need that specific runway length then that is what you need.
Airports do change runways or sometimes will say that it should be OK to go on the other runway, but not confirm it until pushback, or, as appears to have happened here, after pushback commenced. Sounds like a bit of lack of communication or a misunderstanding somewhere along the line. Routes are busy, and if the slot was missed it was missed. Quite often happens due to either passengers not turning up at the gate 30 mins before departure or ground handling not being ready.
The routing for the flight may have been a bit different due to restrictions. It is very very common for an airline to re-route the flight to get a better slot. If for example you have a slot delay of 1 hour and you can re-route and the flight will take an extra 15 minutes but means you now have no slot, then its usually worth doing.
Sometimes when you are airborne you might be lucky and get a direct routing, thus eliminating the need to go the long way. But if it was busy then the flight plan route would stand.
The airline wouldn't be telling you what routing it got or why.
I've been on a flight plan which routed us south for about 100+ miles then back up to just east of where we had departed, for no apparent reason. It turns out it was a cock up somewhere along the way, but our departure ATCO couldn't sort it so we had to wait until airbourne and talking to the next controller before we managed to turn around.
It happens.
Cutting up the centre of the UK from Italy doesn't sound unusual to me, it probably made not alot of difference to the total flight time.
As an example, when we route from London to the Canaries, we usually go south across the Brest peninsula, Santiago, then Portugal and then across to the Canaries. But sometimes due to congestion we go Southampton then Lands End then out over the south atlantic and down from there. It takes about an extra 15 or 20 minutes.
I don't really understand your gripes, it all sounds like a fairly normal busy day in summer to me.

[Sick Squid]

Interesting post... I suspect a long time in front of FS2000 with a few Aerad charts on the side. ;)

Anyway, there's quite a few good questions hidden in there. Firstly, with regard to slot delays, I think it's fairly safe to say that charter flights always sem to be at the bottom of the heap on these. I operate the occasional charter amongst a majority of schedules, and the biggest hits seem to always be on the charter sectors.

Naples is an... interesting... airfield. I'm not convinced by your report of the Captain's PA; you may have misunderstood his meaning on a couple of points. I must admit, it would be hard to condense what I'm about to write into a PA that would be understood by the average punter. Given the complexity involved, it is understandable that meanings may become confused by oversimplification.

Have a good look at the terrain around the airfield next time you are in Naples. Runway 24 is second-segment limited runway... that means in this case that the performance calculations are dictated by the engine-failure (and on 24 with a turn) scenario caused by the hill that sits right in your way on departure. The requirement to maintain a minimum gradient of climb should you lose an engine severely restricts the take off weight on that runway.

Runway 06 does not have that hill, so is not so limiting, however if the wind is favouring 24 your are in a real Devil's trade-off. Bearing in mind that tailwind also reduces your maximum take-off weight by a very large amount you can easily end up with a situation where your planned weight would be too heavy for both runways.... something like a summers day, at 30 degrees, with a 15 knot south westerly wind blowing would probably get you there (the caveat here is I don't have performance books in front of me, but am basing my answer on just such a tradeoff I had to do last week, in a 737, at considerably colder temperatures with almost that wind and a full aircraft.)

There are no easy answers here... if the wind is well over your tailwind limits, then you will most likely have to either use a planning technique known as re-clearance, or simply plan a tech. stop... both require the consideration of an early landing to refuel.

But if the wind is hovering around your limits, or the temperature is almost there, then it really becomes a judgment call... which option to go for? Throw in variables such as slot pressure, and a very small ramp area, and it can really be difficult keeping all those balls in the air. And then, when you eventually get to the runway, the SID's aren't the easiest in the World, either, and there's a mess of high ground in your way no matter what runway you end up departing from! ;)

As to the rest, tactical routing is probably the answer as Grandad above put very well; the best route is not always the shortest, or the most obvious. That, however, is in the hands of flight planners, who have access to more route information than we can get on the flight deck.

Hope this helps, it's always fun describing the unseen chess games we have to play sometimes...

(And by the way, for the pilots lurking, I know I have oversimplified the definition of the Perf A part, .... for the reasons, see above!)

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Disappears in a cloud of black ink... with the usual typos now edited out!

[This message has been edited by Sick Squid (edited 02 January 2001).]

[You splitter]

Just one thing to say in addition to the two good replies above.

With reference to your question on the return journey routing. There is also a thing called SRS (Standard Routing Scheme)

This was introduced several years Ok and is designed to give maximum flow rate through heavily congested area's of airspace. If you are originating from, for example, Itlay and going to North England, there are specific routings that you are obliged to take. You can not take any airway you wish.
I don't know if that is the case here, but it is possible that the way you went isn't allowed for returning.

The SRS can very often be frustrating and completely illogical, but I guess the experts who study these things know what they are doing in order to improve ATC punctuallity.

Personally I think it much more likely that you were re-routed to improve the slot, as pointed out above.

[Newcastle_director]

Thanks alot guys!

The Reason how i know about Newcastles procedures is having sat in the Radar room for a few hours and as you say on FS2K! :-)

Also i was in the flight deck untill about FL280 on the descent!

The Reason for this posting was just basically to know what the procedure was if your slot was missed, how long it takes to get a new one etc.


Thanks for you help anyway, i learn something everyday!! ;-)

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Andy Thompson