Heathrow Ground

[Thunderbug]

A few months back when T5 opened there were 3 ground freqs at LHR. The west end of the field had its own freq and the system seemed to work fairly well.

Now we seem to be back to 2 freqs with 121.85 controlling a vast swath of the northern & western parts of the airport. This seems to be loading the ground freq so much that start up delays are a now a daily occurance.

What happened to the 3rd freq 121.9?

T'bug

[AJ7]

121.9 still exists... when the 3 GMC's are all split

Its being 'bandboxed' a lot at the moment however, GMC 3+1 on 121.85 covering the area you mentioned

[mickrobbo]

Due to the current spread of traffic GMCs 1+3 are bandboxed as GMC1 (121.9) is too quiet to warrant putting a bum in that seat. The vast majority of start delays are due to bad planning from the airline who occupies T5. They seem to allocate stands to aircraft which all have the same EOBT +/- 5mins and then expect them all to push when they are ready. The other day in delivery I had the entire Y cul-de-sac call for start within 5mins, obviously this cannot be done and so regulating the startups (delaying) protects the ground controller from overloading.
If this was better planned then I am certain there would be less delays. You may see 121.9 open more often after UA/NZ move to T1 tomorrow...who knows!

[caucatc]

What is the longest taxi time have you seen before ? Is 20 minutes taxi common in western countries especially large airport ?

[TopBunk]

Cauatc

20 minutes fairly standard these days, and at LHR I consider good. JFK in the evening 1 hour pretty standard, 1:30 not at all unusual!

[Thunderbug]

Thanks for the replies

mickrobbo

vast majority of start delays are due to bad planning from the airline who occupies T5

I think you give the occupant of T5 too much credit. I don't think they do "planning".


Cauatc

Taxi times at LHR vary. 25-30 min seems standard recently, but 8 minutes is the quickest I achieved at LHR. 48 minutes the longest (and that was after 20min start up delays!)

[caucatc]

Thanks for your information about taxi time.
Are there some pilots require ATC change the runway for them so that they can taxi faster ? Is that common happen in your countries ?
The longest time to taxi in ZBAA could be about 20 minutes ,nearly all the pilots request the runway in the initial contact when they know their runway assignment is far from their apron.Sometimes it can really make me mad,cause that enhance a lot of transmission.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

caucatc.. As I think has been mentioned earlier, pilots have no choice in the runway to be used at many busy airports simply because local regulations require ATC and the pilots to use runways in accordance with noise restrictions. If there is some major operational reason why a different runway may be required, the pilot may request it but he will be advised that it may lead to long delays.

Heathrow "oldies" - Bravo 10 to Block 16 anyone - 2 minutes (especially if it's MR)???

[surfingatco]

For those of you who haven't heard the Mike Romeo story here it is (from ACE's retirement do a few years ago).

Enjoy!

SA

If the link doesn't work, right click and "save link as" (Firefox) "save target as" (IE)

[Defruiter]

Fantastic!

[lost in london]

Great story thanks for adding it.