Taxi operations at major airports
 

Hi folks,

Some pilot friends have confessed of the high work load and stress level that they regularly experienced flying into the major airports,like LAX,JFK,ORD.

A large part of th e problem seems to be in the size of airport charts that they are provided with. Often the lack of familiarity and difficulty of correlating airport layout to the charts ,as well as poor visibility add to the high stress level .

Many says that they are more prepared by their training to handle inflight emergencies, but receive little training on how to get around the major airports they fly to.

Am just interested in finding out if this is an industry wide problem.


Cheers

There has been a thread on RP about Dublin following the runway incursion there and the (allegedly) poor quality of the signage. Paris CDG also found they had to up the quality of their signage a year or two ago.

Several companies regard LHR as a high-risk airport simply because of the complexity of taxying there.

Anyone else have an opinion on this?

Certainly have a few points.

I have flown into JFK/EWR/SFO/LAX/ANC and ORD.

Yes the taxi instructions are confusing because you have to read all the small print notes on several pages in the ground section, often, it would seem contradictory or conflicting or just plain not clear. You have to try and remember all those notes as well as acknowledge all transmissions from the tower/ground movement controller. But, in addition, you have to have the fingers of a carpet weaver and the ears of a bat to cope with the multitude of frequency changes from Tower, to Ground, to Terminal/Gate Control, (often a couple a frequency changes on Ground alone), not to mention the possibility of a call from the agent advising a gate change etc. as well as monitoring the taxying and doing the after landing checks. At times such as this a third crew member can be a life saver.
What seems to get most of us is the fact that, on clearing the runway and changing to ground, we don't just get a clear set of instructions and control to our gate but have to liaise also with another agency who control the terminal we use or any other piece of the real estate that we traverse to get to where we want to go.

On top of that, due to density of traffic, the controllers all, to the unpractised non American ear, appear to speak far too fast, break to another a/c without pause and resent a request to 'say again'!


Taxying at LHR is a dream compared to the USA, at night, for instance, at LHR, just, "follow the greens", but even in the daytime it is not a real problem. I could not agree that LHR is 'High Risk' at all. Paris(CDG) on the other hand is a confusing nightmare, especially on the South West side near the cargo terminal!

I think it would help if carriers who don't fly to the USA as reularly as some, pooled their knowledge as well as seeking information from the regulars to the USA and ensured that a very concise and up to date briefing was available on request, possibly on the net.

Re: Taxi operations at major airports
 

Aviator,

Timing is everything, you land when it is busy and the controller barely has time to take a breath before he or she keys up to talk to the next aircraft.

First and Foremost, if you are unfamiliar with any airport, or you feel that you may need alittle extra guidance from Ground Control, PLEASE don't hesitate to state, " your acft id, REQUEST PROGRESSIVE TAXI INSTRUCTIONS to ". NO controller should give you any gruff, and if they do hey post a message onto the NATCAnet Public BBS at http://www.natca.org/PublicBBS.asp.

At any airport, and I know you know this, DO NOT cross any runway unless you are 100% positive that you have been cleared to cross it, and look both ways before you do, just in case!

I've had pilots call onto Local Control while on final and say I'm parking at Kitty Hawk, hey this gives me a heads up on which way to turn you off the runway, thus preventing the hassle of having you re-cross the runway.

Mike
FWA

G. Khan
Great idea; familiarity is everything. Such a forum dealing with specific peccadillos of various airports would be a good idea. Especially galling is, after rapidly clearing active due to another aircraft positioned 1.5 on your @ss by Approach, to have Ground give a 10 sentence, rapid-fire instruction, and not wait for an acknowledgment. Especially stupid with foreign-language crew. This seems to happen often at JFK.

FWA
JFK Ground Control personnel would be happy to comply with a 'request progressive' at 3 AM; forget it at 10:30 AM; they call you with one instruction (normally) and want compliance; with up to 30 other aircraft taxiing around, how can they?

This is one of aviation's most serious problems; runway incursions are bound to increase, along with other less serious mistakes.

Semaphore,

I know what you mean, but if asked we are required to provide progressive taxi instructions. The issue is to be SAFE!

I've flown into ORD during busy traffic periods to hear the rapid fire taxi directions and wondered "what the heck did he say?". Add in taxiway closures, and constructions and taxiing around only gets more challenging.

I don't have a simple answer, but I can suggest that if possible you should try to visit the tower and talk with the controllers (not management) about some of the problems that you are encountering.

Mike

Someone wrote into us privately a couple of weeks ago suggesting exactly that Sam.

Unbelievably that person also offered to get the ball rolling by producing a guide for Manchester in the UK. We get lots of suggestions but rarely an offer of actual leg work so we were very pleased indeed.

I'll be writing back to our kind soul in the next few days (only 144 left in the in tray to deal with first:eek: ).

Whether it's a really useful idea or not depends on whether enough folks will do a one off piece of work to support other aviation professionals. Certainly worth running up a wish list for target airports - perhaps one of the mods here would care to get the ball rolling in another couple of forums to guage reaction and suggested airports. What it says on the plate versus what you really need to know.

Rob