Gas guzzling wastage at JFK
 

Departing JFK on Saturday evening, 04L in use and we pushed only to join the back of a 40+ queue to the runway. This is quite a common occurrence in New York and we loaded a bit of extra taxi fuel to cover it.

When we got to the runway, we'd burnt all of the 3,000kgs we'd loaded for the (hour long) taxi but what a waste. With 40 in the queue and an hour on the taxiway, the airport must be responsible for burning at least 50 tonnes an hour of unneccesary fuel because they don't operate a gate hold system.

Sure, it's a busy place, but why not have the landers wait with engines shut down and wait for a gate rather than a line of departing a/c right round the airport chucking a valuable resource into the atmosphere?

Gate holds cost a fraction of that with 4 engines running on a heavy. Why not at JFK?

Or even better: use remote holding, so push back from the gate, shut down and await your turn.
At least the landing A/C can dock, clean, board, and join the cue again.
Not just JFK unfortunately....

Gr.
Spuis

Surely even a lowly SLF can see the problem with that: You'd quickly condemn the new arrivals to departure delays and quickly wreck the entire schedule - particularly of the highly networked local airlines. The solution would surely be to get departures out of the gates and waiting, shut down, on some remote part of the airfield - just as soon as JFK can reclaim some space from the sea for that to be done. ;)

face it, many airports are not run for fuel efficiency. I do recall that during bax winter wx there is a bit more organization to keep planes that have been de/anti/iced within their holdover times.

gee wilbur, with all of these new fangled computers, you would think the scheduling would work better.


and there is danger (small) of taxying out on one engine and getting close to the runway, starting the other engine and OOPS the starter shaft has sheared...now you have to go all the way back to get fixed.

better to start at the gate, have a "good" engine start time and go right to takeoff.


was JFK better before Jetblue?

I wonder what the record is for JFK under normal ops conditions, seem to recall in my ops days of seeing several around 3 hrs block to takeoff times for a sched flt Transamerica did to AMS. This was back in the early to mid 80's.

What's a APU use in fuel compared to 30 minutes over Ockham?:)

I once spent over 5 hours in the congo line at JFK with the centre engine and the APU running one particularly foul night about 20 years ago. We were No.54 when we joined and I remember hearing a No.78.

As someone has already stated, holding at the Gate is not allowed.

When you were way back in the departure queue you could only pray for a runway change. This would then entail every one in a 180 at some turning point and leave you at the front of the line for departure.:ok:

I often thought that it would pay to have a huge fleet of tugs just to pull the line around the airport until it was their turn for departure. Some companies delayed starting one or two engines until they were at the head of the crew. One large American outfit forgot to start the centre engine on their DC10 (Luxury Liner) but picked the error up when they noted a lack of performance passing 20,000feet.

Can't we have "lounge holding"? I'd rather not board for an hour than sit for another hour with minimal freshair.

Hang on, listen to the Septics asking for 'ride reports' - they regularly go down 2, 3 or 4 thousand feet just to get out of mild turbulence.

I cannot begin to imagine how much fuel American operators waste in their zealous pursuit of calmer air.

I get sick and tired of all American operators asking for ride reports across the Atlantic - I guess this should be another thread - perhaps it will end up there ?

Conserve fuel guys, your offspring wil appreciate it :ok:

It's lawsuits, mate. Pax get hurt in CAT then sue the carrier. Captain gets dragged into court to explain himself. Welcome to the american legal system.

U.S. Airport congestion
 

Gentlemen,

There is a thread under TECH LOG regarding single-engine taxi. This is relevant to our discussion here.

Tom

From my experience, the requests for ride reports seem to come from all nationalities, more so from us colonials when we're gobbed up in loose formation.

At my company, the "hostie" injury rate has gone down as a result of more CAT awareness., even given their increasing fraility due rapidly advancing age.

Now if we're discussing endless requests for sports scores of teams I can't stand, then we are in agreement. Only discussion of teams I like should be permitted. They can easily be put in a notam format with Gander and Shanwick.:E

September 2000. Waited in line at JFK for over 5 hours. Nothing moved!

I get paid by the minute.
You want to sit on an airplane that has arrived after 8 hours flying and wait for the gate for 2 hours. I dont think so. Most paxs would rather be onboard and in line knowing they are going to depart. But keep 2-300 people bunched up in the terminal and wait and see, you get total hatred. At leats on the airplane if done right, the paxs will understand and be of no problem.

But hey thats a colonial for you.

Our smiles aren't just painted on...
 

Yeah, well, when you realize that the concept of "in-flight service" has virtually disappeared, then maybe (at least) a smooth ride isn't too much to ask for.

Hey Ace... I didn't realize that BA aka "Speedbird", Air France, Lufthansa, KLM, German Wings, Globe Span, to name a few, are American carriers and they request ride reports too.:ugh:

Well then for an improved cabin service I suggest dig deeper and pay more for the ticket. The airports and goverments get half the money from the tickets.

Who wants to ride for even an hour in turbulence? You would be complaining to the flight attendant then writting a letter to you friend the CEO of the airline to complain.

Ride Reports
 

Damn Yankees

They actually care about the comfort and safety of passengers. How dare they?

Come on, let's talk about unnecessarily air polution.