Departing KORD
 

I haven't been into KORD in a while. I recall that you get your departure runway assignment after Ramp hands you over to Ground. This caused lots of work if you didn't guess the correct runway during preflight. Is there any way to get your departure runway prior to pushback?

Cheers...

Call "metering" 10 mins before your scheduled departure time and they'll tell you your planned runway.

It can still change, though... 😭

I’m based there. Just call delivery and ask them.

Essentially for heavies, if it’s a West operation, expect R28R/N5 or full length. If it’s an East operation, expect R10L/DD or full length.

If you do get a runway change, let them know early if you need to run the numbers for the new runway and that you’ll need a bit more time. The controllers are some of the best I’ve encountered and they do understand what’s needed with a change and they’ll adjust the departure sequence to accommodate.

And there is only one SID - fantastic!

S02

And even then people still screw it up lol

I guess that depends on your definition of "a lot of work". For us, it's about 45 seconds of reprogramming.

You don't count doing the runway change checklist? You know running the numbers and briefing the new engine out procedure? Then starting the other engine?

If you can do that in 45 seconds your a skygod.

Perhaps you’re not considering that other companies probably have better infrastructure in place to streamline things and running numbers.

If you were really proactive there’s nothing to stop you running numbers for a couple of runways you might expect before you even push off the gate.

Actually, we run the numbers for all departure runways before pushback. So, for example, if they're using 22L and 28R/N5, we run them both, that way we have the stuff ready. Second engine start is a separate issue, it depends on the taxi time. Either way, we know the runway assignment as soon as Metering hands us off to Ground, it's really not that big a deal.

I suppose, having been based there with two different airlines doesn't hurt.

Our runway change checklist is 7 items, maybe a minute. And I don’t have the paperwork in front of me but I think the engine failure procedure for every runway is a straight out climb. Which is item 7 on the checklist.