Perth Airport
 

.......is a disgrace.

All it has taken is a 'pothole' in RW06/24 to cause HUGE disruption on the busiest day of the week. This pavement damage occurred yesterday early afternoon from what i have been told. Why could this not have been fixed overnight? No work was being done before the 'big rush' at 6 am this morning!

Not that it will ever happen but WAC needs to take a hard look at what is becoming a farce of an airport. This morning was 28 minutes from start up to wheels up. That is on op of the 16 minute delay past scheduled ETD due to no taxi-slots being available. :ugh: This is another gripe, when you know there is only 1 runway in operation why keep the same number of taxi-slots per 10 minute bracket? We were number 8.....yes 8 at the hold point/taxiway A1. It was like being at Heathrow when there is snow and fog around!

I dont expect any answers to this, just needed to vent as its becoming increasingly frustrating to be at work in the mornings! :ok:

Vent heard...
28 minutes is a lot but it's still nothing compared with stupidity at melb airport. At least 45 mins wait due single runway ops on 16. And while they're at it, the shut down almost half of it down in the middle of the night when cloud is forcast BKN008. So no one gets in! Intelligence of the situation is staggering.

YUP!!! I've seen better organisation in Port Morbid, truly.

One day last week, we missed our slot by 14 mins (whilst waiting for a tug).

We called up on ground for pushback and they said "you've missed your slot time - the next available is 40-50 mins from now". Our response was "ahh no i'm sorry we were given XXX slot on Clearance Delivery".... suckers!

Do they not realise they have 2 runways??

Also what's with the new rule where you cannot call up for a slot until 30 mins before??

Just one more thing you have to choreograph on a turnaround. Make the place a f***ing CTAF and be done with it.
:ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh:

Geez beaver you'd have to Gen Y or I with a post like that.

You missed your slot time by 14 minutes because of your own problems, then you call ATC suckers? Please explain?

Next time you look at your Jepps, please note whilst there are two runways, they cross. You could have ten runways all crossing in the middle; are you suggesting the departure rate would be much better than only one runway?

That's to stop selfish buggers calling up two hours before for a slot. If you have a better system, then send it along to Wally. Maybe we should have an "out of the hat" system?

Pull up on blocks, do the parking checklist and get the effo to ask for a taxi slot. Surely that isn't too hard?

Go for it. :cool:

Finally and at last, taxiway Alpha through to Delta! Excellent! :ok: :ok: :D

Oh and Bloggs, it'd be nice if you guys stopped stealing our bays too! :ok:

Are they building the Oswals new place over between gates 8-11 or something!?

We're keeping them warm for when we kick you riff-raff over to the other side and move in for good! :E

"Has anybody seen my Fokker?" "Yeh, wayyyy over there". :}

Some serious concrete blocks free to a good home! :D

What a bunch of parochial country bumpkins. 28 minutes - what a pussy!

Over this end of town we get 3 hour delays and think nothing of it. Next time you call up after 3 hours on the bay with the door shut and the aero-bridge (do you know what they are?) retracted and get "waaaaaaaah deray undetermin" then you can have a whinge.

Backarsed country folk - sooooooweeeeee (is that banjos I can hear?) :}:ok::}

The problem with being unable to request a slot time outside of 30 mins is that if you stick to the current system, when you do request a taxi slot the "next availbale slot" is alway 20 to 30 mins after schedule :ugh::ugh:.

I have found ATC are usually fairly accomodating when requesting an early push back. Also been nastily chipped too :{:{:{

I dont think Oswal is having anything being built at the moment. Nice Bentley for sale too. Going cheap with an expected price tag of only $217,000 :ok:

CDM with slot compliance will fix it.

Missy,
I'm not sure about that. My understanding is that CDM only applies to inbound traffic, so unless crews delay their departure out of Perth to make good their later departure times from the outports, the current situation will remain. Delaying departures outbound just won't happen.

Bloggs,
CDM will involve absobing delays on the ground at your outbound port. Your company will also have input into which flights they would prefer to delay.
Have a google on Metron Harmony
From an ATC perspective I'm hoping for some common sense. The PMQ-SY jet flight departs with a 37 minute flight time to enter the hold with 55 minute delay after 18 minutes of actual flying time. Waste of the pilots, passengers and airlines time.

Max,
That is crazy. Wouldn't happen over here. You get a slot time before takeoff coming inbound and it's honoured.

Re Metron, agreed it will fix the inbound holding. Can't wait to be growled-at by Broooome tower "You're not compliant, Bloggs!". Chadzat though is complaining about the taxi slot system trying to get away from Perth.

Yes but only a finite amount of non-radar airspace with a bunch of aircraft all launching into it and heading mostly in the same direction. I've no doubt that PH TWR can launch the aircraft much more quickly than they do.

As for 28 minutes from start up to airborne. Pfft. Obviously got the 'short wait'.

A refueller mate of mine over there reckons that it was repaired overnight that night, between about 1am and 4am, after the east coast redeye rush and majority of the internationals had been and gone. Unfortunately for you guys, if the repair was made with asphalt, this material typically requires some curing time before it can be safely returned to normal service and so I imagine this would have been the reason you all needed to use the long runway.

You wait until the real works start in a few weeks. Once they finish finally fixing Twy W, you are going to loose Rwy06/24 for a few weeks while the other catch up works take place.

By now you should have noticed the fence around the old Twr signalling its imminent demise. :eek:

By the way if anyone has a better idea to manage to manage the taxi slot times lets hear it!!

This is Perth WA we are talking about right ?

With the delays, slot times etc people are talking about you would think it was JFK, PEK or something more like a real airport ;)

A good start would be to use runway 24 for departures. I know, noise abatement. Well design a SID that says at 500' you make a max rate, min speed climbing right turn.

Second. Slots appear useless if you still have a 28 minute delay. Would be easier to call ready to start and work from there. It cannot be a worse outcome than what happens at present.

Or just build a decent airport with a paraellel runway.

But that would take money Neville :ugh: :rolleyes:

I remember when at Adelaide airport you walked across the tarmac, and that was 2001!

How things change, this is the latest I see from Australian Aviation:
Adelaide launches airport building program | Australian Aviation Magazine.

Pity the owners of Perth airport cant spend some money on a new runway, but then at least a new terminal with new shops and people stuck in them because of delays makes more money for Westralia Airport Corporation I guess.:{

It was discussed on here a while ago but don't forget that the Perth master plan is predicting growth over the next 10 years with no change in infrastructure. If the airport is at capacity now, who knows how long you will be waiting for in 10 years time.

I think the only good thing a Carbon Tax might do for aviation is put some pressure on the government to actually build some decent aviation infrastructure and services. It will no longer be acceptable to sit in traffic induced holding patterns or be number 28 for takeoff if your fuel burn is being taxed into oblivion.

.... meanwhile, over at the mining terminals, the vehicle traffic trying to leave the airport can back up for 800 meters (and around 15 minutes) for want of a simple traffic roundabout. Imagine the joy this causes taxi drivers (amongst others) to be imprisoned this way at the peak hours of their business! WAC don't give a stuff!! Meanwhile they continue building their third rate and inconveniently located GA terminal and hope the customers will wait meekly in traffic jams all over the airport. Their idea of infrastructure is 1000 hectares of remote and expensive parking bays and a bus to the terminal for only the most farthest flung of these. Their long term planning isn't about aviation. It's about getting everyone off that beautiful real estate at the present domestic terminal. Whoopee! ...money for nothing and your chicks for free....

Slightly off topic;

I recently went back to Perth after 20+ years of being overseas. I remember when taking trips from Perth as a kid there was a an outdoor area, between the terminal and the aircraft, where black swans use to be. What happened to that? Which terminal was that in? At the time I only remember there being one terminal...

Thanks!

How's the parallel runway coming along?

Is it going ahead, or have WAC decided they are more interested in the revenue that would flow from the commercial utilisation of the land than the expense that would flow from building the third runway?

Icarus2001, your logic and thinking are good - sadly with the politicisation of aviation in this country it would be almost impossible to get through the NIMBY noise nazis'. Remember the vocal minority that were at it when WARP was introduced?

Associated with that a federal politician is STILL lobbying to get the GURAK/KEELS etc SIDS of Rwy 03 changed so it does not fly over all the McMansions out the the north west. :mad:

As an aside there are still problems with the crossing runway departures. On 03/06 any non standard departure off 03 ie: MEMUP,NSM etc has to be separated by the tower with normal 06 departures. You also have a big issue with the bucket load of RAVONS that all want to go at the same time :ugh:

You all should know that even among the turboprops you have faster following ie: Bras behind a Dash 8 :E They all maintain track until about 10nm upwind. Then you throw in a PA31 and if he can't be vectored it does get a bit clogged up. These need to be spaced at departure time, hence you get the "back track line up" even though you requested the H intersection.

But thankfully there is plenty of space to park the car. And once WAC is done eradicating those pesky trees we should not have any trouble with birds either :{

However on a serious note, I think all the unhappy delayed pilots should put pressure on your employers to bring pressure to bear on WAC. They are only getting away with this because industry is letting them. :sad:

That would have been the domestic terminal. The swans where somewhere round about the bit that now joins Virgin etc to Qantas near where the cafe is? Somewhere in that region anyway...:ok:

It took two years to build the link road. I wont be holding my breath for a new runway.

As for Terninal WA :confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused:

Fancy building a new apron area, only to have to rip it all back up again because someone forgot to lay the underground fuel lines first.

http://i521.photobucket.com/albums/w...oggs/swans.gif http://i521.photobucket.com/albums/w...ldterminal.gif

Swans somewhere near the cross:

http://i521.photobucket.com/albums/w...erminalnow.gif

...and where are all the recently announced Qantas 747/A330 domestic flights going to park? Only bays 12, 13, 14 are suitable. And you thought there were delays getting on to the bays now! Hope all the taxiway works are finished before they start.

6 per week 747 only...

Yes between YPPH & YSSY, but they are also upgrading the YBBN service to an A330 in addition to the existing A330 services between YMML & YSSY.

Don't forget that Virgin "whatever we are going to be called" are introducing A330 services between YMML & YSSY as well. :eek: Plus they have already announced they are getting additional aircraft over and above the first 2.

halfforwardflank is correct, delays aplenty coming up - for both taxiing and bays. Bring a good book and pretend your at a big international airport. :8

Qantas Perth Flights With Skybed

Perth is hamstrung by two organisations - the RAAF and WAC, with a bit of noise abatement NIMBY-ism thrown in. Fix one of them and life will be better but if you can fix them all, Perth will be able to work like a real airport.

While PEA takes up the useful 50-odd degree arc to the north of the airport, departure and arrival routes will be congested through the arc from about 030 to 130 (from memory - it's been over six months now!) except for the GURAK dep. Obviously, the more congested you make airspace, the harder it is to get the same amount of traffic through.

From my experience, believe it or not, it is not the procedural sectors that limit the departure rate - all that happens is aircraft get shafted for levels but not for departure timing. It is that departures have to hand off an acceptable situation to West Radar (the first ML Centre dudes).Departures can use 3nm between paints, West Radar needs 5nm, so departures is happy to hand off 4-5nm with no closing but there is NO way any West Radar controller will accept that. I was personally happy with 7-8nm and opening but that still means that departures needs to get an extra few miles (normally through speed control) before handing off. Having to get this extra space means that departures can't achieve the same through-put as in the perfect situation but the only remedy for that is for the inner enroute sector to get approval to use 3nm radar separation. This will not happen in any of our lifetimes. If I am wrong, I will fly to Paris and eat a croissant! :ok:

WAC could come to the party by building a parallel runway, which would help but it's not the silver bullet. Yes, it would help hugely with arrival rates (provided it is done properly) but there would be only a small improvement with departure rates. Jet on a GURAK followed by prop on RAVON - jet's airborne and 6000ft away, launch the prop. Parallel runways will be of only minor help here - the extra time spent taxiing in the prop will outweigh the time 'saved.' It will help when the situation is reversed but then I have also seen some nice work by departures controllers to alleviate this problem in the morning for the tower controller. When the fleet of B71's and F100's generally get away before a prop is fired up, this may have saved 5-8 minutes on the 28 minute delay. WAC is not going to care about this - they won't be able to charge enough extra to make the investment worthwhile on this end of the flight.

The noise complainers are a pain because they stop R24 departures. But whether this would save a huge amount, I am not sure. R24 would only be useful (for saving time) for GURAK and BURGU departures - anything else would probably require cross-overs with the other departing traffic - and I am not sure how many aircraft for those SIDs would use R24 on a daily basis.

While the airspace I work now is far more complex than what I worked in Oz, I am glad that I don't have to put up with the mess that Perth is and it is only going to get worse!

Additional QF flights
 

SYD - PER 6 x 747's plus 5 x A330's. I am not sure if these are all additional flights or just added capacity.

MEL - PER 3 additional A330's

BNE - PER 7 additional A330's plus upgrading 6 round trips to wide body (767?)

Qantas announces fleet expansion, boosts Network | Australian Aviation Magazine

more F100s and 717s to come

Bloody Hell! The world's going mad! :eek:

There'll soon be F@kkers in your 12, 3, 6 and 9 o'clock! :}

Maybe the double-story parks WAC is talking about is for the aeroplanes.

re: Swans
 

Thank you Van Gough and Capn Bloggs!

Cheers!

westausatc - I recently suggested just that to a manager who in the distant past held a rating on the airspace in question. I received a confused look and "why would you want that?" :ugh:

A parallell rwy not being a solution to departure congestion has been pointed out on here before, but people won't believe it. Even if it was, why would WAC spend money on something that won't earn them an extra cent? An article someone on here linked to recently about their ten year expansion plan stated explicitly that no runway/taxiway upgrades were going to happen. The RAAF aren't going to pack up and move either. Basically, between the taxiway and cruise level, things are as good now as they are ever going to be, and probably going to get worse. The airlines have two choices, put up with it or stop flying to/from Perth. As long as they make money, they will put up with it.

The last advice I had on the parallel runway reserve was that industrial property developers have been granted 20 year leases. If you want the extra runway give 20 years notice to regain access to the land and then you can commence works!

DNC

When TAAATS was first commissioned, there was a reference in MATS that clearly stated that the RADAR separation standard on a TAAATS display within 100NM was 3NM. The only limitation being the range-scale on the display during the application of the separation standard. Melbourne Centre Local Instructions stated otherwise and denied us the application of what would have been a distinctly advantageous improvement in our ability to provide a service within 100NM of Perth with the introduction of TAAATS.

The reference in MATS was quickly removed in a subsequent amendment... and quickly forgotten.

At that time we asked the Melbourne techs whether it was true that the Eurocat processing was accurate enough to allow us to apply a 3NM separation standard on a TAAATS display within 100NM and they said "yes".

I then asked JH why the reference in MATS had been removed and he said:

"Because we don't trust En-route controllers to apply a 3NM separation standard".

Unless something has changed, it would seem that there is no technical reason why a 3NM separation standard could not be applied within 100NM on the appropriate range-scale. Which leaves only one problem... someone has to sign-off on it... which means... take responsibility for it.

Which is why we won't be taking a seat in Le Grenier à Pain, Montmarte for some time.

Quokka, actually there was this lovely little cafe just off Rue de Louvre that served up a very nice croissant that I would head back to. Sadly, I do agree!

As to the MATS reference, I remember it as it was only available to TCU within 100nm of MSSR sensor (KMD fulfilled this requirement I think). Since we obviously were not in a TCU, we couldn't use it.

To make the inner sector part of the TCU would cost an absolute fortune. Firstly, they would have to pay for 5-ish controllers to go over to Perth and train as approach plus train the other approach controllers on the new part of the TCU - or just move about 10-12 controllers to PH and set it up as a stand alone part of the TCU. With West Radar staffing in the state it is (precarious is a nice description), there is nowhere for those people to come from for that period. So the removals allowances and lost time to training would be thousands upon thousands of dollars - and this is an organisation that will fight over a few bucks!

Then, AsA would have to spend a bit of money extending the TCU so they could fit a fifth console in the TCU room, or move it to another part of the old approach complex - we know you guys have enough room there! Either of these options is going to cost a fair swag of money, a big no-no to AsA management.

So, although there have been empire building plans from some (the old-old-old-old-old manager comes to mind), it will never happen. As a result, West Radar will still need to have departures extend each departure out a little bit to go from around 4nm separation to over 7nm for handoff. Delays will continue as before.

NB, that wouldn't happen to be the same manager who makes a thuka-thuka-thuka-thuka noise while he is supervising? Sorry, was I too noisy then? :p

And totally agree that things are as good as they are going to be. Only having a short arc to get all the departures out of (while leaving space for arrivals to go in!) means that everything gets squeezed and that stone has just bled its last drop.

So what's the solution then?

Any chance of building a new airport somewhere? They cannot seriously consider doing nothing given that they predict growth in the sector and now QF are going to base an extra 10 aircraft in Perth.....

The rest of the world seems to build decent aviation infrastructure why doesn't Australia?