Ozzies can’t fly when it’s windy?
 

At the risk of canning your hyperbole there is significant delays developing in Syd already this morning due to the capacity reductions associated with single runway - it was over 30 a short time ago and they're onto 25

But hopefully they can spell a primary word in their post! :rolleyes:

Given his username relates to Malaysian Airlines, I'd hazard a guess OP is from that part of the world and english is not particularly hot there. What his beef is with the intricacies of how things work over here though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ATC would have looked at the forecast last night and decided under those conditions (single runway ops in Sydney) we can facilitate XXX number of movements. They then would of gone to the airlines and said "hey instead if the 80 slots (a made up number) in Sydney you normally get, you can only have 50. The airlines work it out from there.
Considering how long the ground delays can be just trying to get to RWY 25, I can only imagine the chaos if they didn't cancel flights.
It sucks your plans probably got altered but, it is what it is. You do understand that we don't enjoy it too? How many crews are going to get home hours late or over night in some other city despite the the plans they had with families etc. Probably plenty of controllers working hard and doing over time to (eventually) get you where you are going safely.
(they were probably doing that anyway though :E)
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They really do move to 25/07 far too early. Anything up to 30kts should be 16/34. Beyond that ok fine, but I can't think of a single transport category aircraft that can't land in 30 kts. So instead I get to drill holes in the sky over Boree whilst we operate our biggest airport at hobbled capacity.

@$!#

Don't even start me on SODPROPS on a weekend just to tick a box.

I'd imagine landing on 16R with a 30kt sou'wester would be quite sporting! :ouch:

However going into Melbourne late at night it’s not uncommon to be landing with 20kts crosswind and 5kts tail wind on a 2300m runway because they are only using 34 for departures NE....🙄

Having said all that - I acknowledge that the arrival rates are determined the evening prior based on a forecast, so essentially the damage is done then.

It wasn’t uncommon to see 120 minute COBT delays today - not fun for anyone.

Two words:

1. Politics.

2. Money (to the extent that politics don't equal money).

Sorry, I meant one word: Safety.

[QUOTE]Exactly the situation last night - 30min airborne delays around 8pm because they were running RW27 only when the wind was around 15kts from the north west. But hey, it’s world’s best practice in Australia, right?

On another note... anyone on here have any info why MEL is the only airport in Aus that seems to change their ATIS every 5-10min most days?/QUOTE]

The large amount of ATIS changes is dictated by the Tower controllers and only by the Tower controllers. I suspect most of it is purely about "a-se" covering if something were to occur! Melbourne definitely holds a unique place in the world of aviation controlling on a few fronts.

Its so funny, go to the Europe, NA or even asia and you can see they can accomodate far more traffic with usually worse weather conditions

Sometimes the issue is the excessive crosswind across the bay, especially the 34R threshold wind. The wind along RWY 07/25 could be 260/18 however the threshold winds at RWY 34L and R might be say 260/30.

If you wish to operate to higher crosswind criteria then lobby CASA to get the rules changed.

The other issue that needs to be considered is the safe management of traffic. If you run higher acceptance rates then you end landing up to say 45 per hour for several hours on 34// and then say 75 aircraft of these aircraft become departures and the achieved rate on a single departure runway is about 25 (or less if there is a significant number of aircraft that "require" 34L for departure). Do the maths on that, and then add another 20-25 arrivals per hour into the mix.

Build RWY 25L, fill in the northern part of the moat, that is, south of TWY Lima.

Same is happing in NZ, I don't know how you airline guys keep sane!!! I suppose you just do what you have to and try not to think of madness of it all. I am sure in other 20 years it will come right and common sense will prevail but not for a while by the looks of it!!!

NZ isn't really even close. There was a 288 minute COBT delay yesterday for some guys into YSSY and you would still then receive airborne delays. YMML average delay would be 5 minutes weekdays and with one RWY you'd be happy with only a 10min delay, taking off from YMLT and getting a 30 minute delay isn't abnormal. NZ pilots jump up and down if they're slowed down by a minute or two.

Has nothing to do with the pilots(as always normally), but when burocrats start making rules then it ends like this.

I was flying for long gone Ansett way back(it is actually nearly 19 years, my god, time flies), still remember some of the weird rules they had down under(hated the rules, loved the country). To much influence from their "parents", the brits I must clearly say. Not good, but hey, thats what they know.

Aviation got overregulated over the past(nearly) 2 decades, it did not became better(of course my opinion, as always, but that is what I see in direct comparison). Long time that I am back to Europe and as well here some aviation authorities just do not get it right - take some Italian airports as an example(other nations are not much better, but not to make this post to long lets go with (in)famous ENAC and some of it''s multiple stupid decissions) - there is for instance Treviso(LIPH) that can only accept a maximum of 15 kts x-wind(single runway outfit with usual landing on ILS07 and take off 25. No hills, mountains that affect the runway really. It is just like this. Are italian pilots generally bad? Nope. But their authority is not one of the most effective ones(let's take it like this to say it in a nice way). Treviso is not the only airport that has not so clever rules like that.

We could go on with airports in France, their attitude towards the #1 aviation language, ENGLISH, plus some other rules, UK, SPAIN....

Over the years I learned just to take a deep breath when they come up with something "new" to make my life easy and SAFE(the new magic word that makes everything right), usually it just causes delay. Good for a controller, he goes home anyway. Not so good for us pilots, we are stuck where we usually are, in the flightdeck till time runs out and it becomes game over. Normally they alway manage it that we just make it in time, still, the days become long due to "effective" rules. Just take this "sticking with filed flightlevel" bs that they are pulling here in Europe now. Like that makes any sense in a summer full of bad thunderstorms and the NEED for an effective ATC instead of one that is pulling out (idiotic) rules out of their hat. But that is "modern" aviation nowadays.

To make you fell better - it will just go worse. Overregulation tends to have that effect.

Glad I don't fly in Aussie anymore then!!!

George, what are these particular or peculiar Australian ATC rules that you are referring to? Can you give the forum some specific examples ?

Curious. If RWY25 had high speed taxiways would this increase the hourly movements? The investment would be warranted no?

We all know that the crosswind is nowhere near the aircraft operating limits (but may well be beyond the first officers operating limits, but that's another story for another day) however the rule-set is from CASA. Lobby CASA to get the rules changed.

One thing that has changed in the last 20-25 years is the increased use of wind analysers that accurately display the instantaneous, mean (2 minute average) and peak winds. Wind back 20 years, single anemometer and wind socks, there is a LOT more data available to the TWR ATCs. Perhaps there needs to be more education around the wording "including gusts" and how this relates to the instantaneous, mean and peak winds, which winds are used for which purpose.

For information, the RWY 34L anemometer is owned (and maintained) by the BoM and is the one recorded on the METAR and SPECI. There will often be major differences between this wind and the ATIS wind (for obvious reasons).

Also, COBT doesn't mean no holding, it should mean significantly less holding than a "free for all", the current rules around COBT do need changing and ACDM should result in better outcomes. Recent feedback provided by Industry to Airservices has resulted in an adjustment to have more aircraft airborne to "keep pressure on the system" to maximise throughput but always having aircraft in the pipeline.

Yes, China. In their defense 90% of the countries airspace is rigidly controlled by the military & they deal with far more adverse weather than Australian ATC do. And they are a developing country. We have no such defense.

So yes, it is a massive snafu & an embarassment to those of us who ply the aviation trade outside Australia.