Melbourne Air Traffic Control

[Chronic Snoozer]

Yeah, trains.



And we have an air transportation system in which the chief protagonists, pilots and ATC, admit 'They have no control AT ALL over the magnitude or configuration of the delays.' :confused:

Not saying I have the answer, just sayin'

It’s not rocket science...

How dare you. This Australia. Everything we do is rocket science.

[George Glass]

Responses by ATC apologists are straight out of Utopia or Yes Minister. The hospital is empty but its the most efficient in the country. You just don’t get it .
Allow aircraft to takeoff at their performance limit. If they need the long runway, let them use the long runway, on request from clearance delivery.
Put the x-wind limit back to 25 knots. Like it used to be . Or shut RWY 27 altogether and get the movement rate up to the same as Gatwick.
And introduce a real slot time system, not the half-a#sed COBT.
But either way FIX IT for pities sake! Have you any idea how pathetic this circus looks from anywhere outside Australia?

[neville_nobody]

Responses by ATC apologists are straight out of Utopia or Yes Minister. The hospital is empty but its the most efficient in the country.

Exactly. Meanwhile over in the USA New York La Guardia which has crossing runways, a curfew, moves more passengers and gets much worse weather than what Melbourne could imagine in 2017 had 369,135 movements vs 239,466 in Melbourne. That's more than 1.5 times the movements with the same runway configuration and a curfew!!!:D Now if that is what is actually possible why do we have so much congestion?

[Maggie Island]

Put the x-wind limit back to 25 knots. Like it used to be . Or shut RWY 27 altogether and get the movement rate up to the same as Gatwick.
And introduce a real slot time system, not the half-a#sed COBT.
But either way FIX IT for pities sake! Have you any idea how pathetic this circus looks from anywhere outside Australia?

I think by this stage you’ve figured out the crux of this conundrum, ATC does what they can with what they’ve got. And when the majority of capital city airports here have poor (or no) access to high speed taxiways, awkward taxiway placement and inefficiencies in flow management capability the amount of investment needed to get us up to speed with proper modern airports would amount to billions... And I don’t know if there are many willing investors out there!

[Chronic Snoozer]

I think by this stage you’ve figured out the crux of this conundrum, ATC does what they can with what they’ve got. And when the majority of capital city airports here have poor (or no) access to high speed taxiways, awkward taxiway placement and inefficiencies in flow management capability the amount of investment needed to get us up to speed with proper modern airports would amount to billions... And I don’t know if there are many willing investors out there!

That's the whole point there isn't it. Why did we flog off our essential infrastructure again?

[B772]

neville nobody. Do not forget LaGuardia has 5 airports/heliports with instrument procedures within 5 nm and 10 airports/heliports within 19 nm.

[The name is Porter]

I think you'll find that most ATC's love moving traffic, it's not only an ego thing, it's professional pride. Give them the resources and they will move more. Give them a crap system and you'll get crap results.

- Privatised airports, awesome! You're gunna get the best runway and taxyway set up there, aren't you.
- COBT, what an embarrassing joke. I'm sure that it's backed up by a state of the art flow management system, not.
- Movement caps and curfews, instituted by a member of parliament that hates aircraft, pilots etc but loves the Chairman's Club.

Watch Alan Joyce and the Virgin fellows episode of the Press Club, (iview), you'll see half of what aviation is up against in this 3rd world country parading as 1st.

morno, the explanation you got for COBT is a bit simplistic!

[morno]

morno, the explanation you got for COBT is a bit simplistic!

That wasn’t an explanation I was given, that’s just simple reasoning that I came up with. I don’t know if it’s 100% accurate.

You people stress yourselves too much about small things that you can do very little about. I just accepted whatever came and dealt with it. Thankfully I’m only slightly grey as a result.

[The name is Porter]

If by 'you people' you're talking about ATC's stressing about things they can't do anything about, they don't really, there's other things to stress about.

A better word is frustrated. Frustrated that you can do more but you're hamstrung by morons (politicians), more morons (privatised airports), and even bigger morons (whomever half arsed a joke of a COBT program).

[missy]

General impression ... that is gets ''gamed" by the bigger and smarter more well resourced players - yes, that one.
True. Problem is that the compliance window should've been progressively tightened, the current compliance window of -5 to +15 can result in everyone being complaint and yet the majority get delayed. More like -2 to +5, and include trans Tasman flights as well.
One of the major problems encountered by Melbourne and Sydney is the International aircraft arriving well ahead of their gate slot. Hurry up and wait.

[Global Aviator]

From a JFK thread, planning up to 30kt xwind...

https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/626542-jfk-question.html

What are the xwind issues?

[Green.Dot]

Almost couldn’t believe it when I saw them using Runway 09 for arrivals and Runway 16 for departures on the ATIS this arvo/evening. Wind 140/13. Is this a trial? Anyway, hats off to ATC, they are obviously trying to improve things and this is a great start. Well done!

[Colonel_Klink]

Almost couldn’t believe it when I saw them using Runway 09 for arrivals and Runway 16 for departures on the ATIS this arvo/evening. Wind 140/13. Is this a trial? Anyway, hats off to ATC, they are obviously trying to improve things and this is a great start. Well done!

Speaking to a ML Approach controller a few weeks ago - he said that before ATC were allowed to do it live, they basically had to practice this runway configuration in the simulator first. With a bit of luck that’s all been done now and we can see this config a bit more often!

Id be interested to hear from ATC if this runway config is more efficient with as many aircraft as possible taking off at ‘E’ (ie does aircraft taking off north of 09/27 reduce the departure rate?).

I assume once the current taxi way works around E are finished this might make things a little easier to use this configuration too.

[wishiwasupthere]

Operated into ML a few weeks ago when 09 was in use for arrivals. It was interesting too see a few jets coming off on A, when Jepps says P is the preferred exit for jets. Maybe a case of unfamiliarity and not looking at the Jepps Airport Efficiency page?

[LostontheLOC]

Or maybe ATC where offering Alpha? Maybe? I know it happened to me..

[RAC/OPS]

Alpha is always available to vacate as far as ATC are concerned, except when there is an aircraft taxying for Bravo or Charlie. Doesn’t work so well then. In that case TWR should advise with the landing clearance that it is not available.

[Capn Bloggs]

It was interesting too see a few jets coming off on A, when Jepps says P is the preferred exit for jets.
P wouldn't be very "preferred" for Virgin...

[Bula]

Interesting situation. Requested vacate via A, was approved. Land, Turn the corner expecting virgin to be holding short Echo... nope, they were cleared to the A holding point. Luckily they had room to turn onto E otherwise things would have been a little more interesting.

[Gear in transit]

Is there going to be a mode for 09dep 16arr? Or is that a ‘essendon’s in the way’ thing all over again?

[DukeBen]

Is there going to be a mode for 09dep 16arr? Or is that a ‘essendon’s in the way’ thing all over again?

Unlikely, as departing aircraft would have to cross the arrival runway twice for each departure. This would delay departures and increase taxiway congestion.

With around 90% of departing aircraft using intersection Echo, 09 Arrivals and 16 Departures is more efficient and has less risk, due to the independent nature of that operation.

[Lookleft]

Good to see common sense prevailing at Melbourne or maybe economic imperative at play. The opening of taxiway Foxtrot was long overdue and despite the winds kept the delays to a minimum.

[RAC/OPS]

Good to see common sense prevailing at Melbourne or maybe economic imperative at play. The opening of taxiway Foxtrot was long overdue and despite the winds kept the delays to a minimum.

Don’t get too used to it! Foxtrot being open that is....

[Gear in transit]

Don’t get too used to it! Foxtrot being open that is....

I can't keep up with the method of works pages anymore.... what's next with Foxtrot?

[RAC/OPS]

I can't keep up with the method of works pages anymore.... what's next with Foxtrot?

Hopefully this is the final push to get it, and the Victor extension to the other side of Echo finished and open. Like you, I don’t keep up either so not sure of the timeline. But as you know, once that is finished they’ll be ripping up another taxiway!

[Angle of Attack]

Gotta love Melbourne, 75 mins holding this afternoon, and landed and the place was a ghost town, everyone in the hold! Wind 340/6 and CAVOK.
They should just build a functional airport further out and shut down this basketcase of a so called International airport at Tullamarine, Victoria 3 useable runways for decent sized jets, and SE QLD, soon 5 decent usable runways across 4 airports, with far less population.

[donkey767]

Gotta love Melbourne, 75 mins holding this afternoon, and landed and the place was a ghost town, everyone in the hold! Wind 340/6 and CAVOK.
They should just build a functional airport further out and shut down this basketcase of a so called International airport at Tullamarine, Victoria 3 useable runways for decent sized jets, and SE QLD, soon 5 decent usable runways across 4 airports, with far less population.

Welcome to Australia, where we claim to be a 1st world country, but our infrastructure is 2 decades behind.

[Ollie Onion]

Landed there last night, 25 minutes holding with 1000m in FU, RWY 27 closed for works, wind 290/18 and they were using R16 with a tailwind as the into wind ILS was U/S for some taxiway works. They reopened 27 just as we departed at 0000 after the peak :-(

[Derfred]

I thought they did a bloody good job keeping everyone safe yesterday evening (wed) in the massive storms with the wind changing constantly through all degrees of the compass.