Operational & Convenience reasons
 

I was listening to LiveATC earlier and on approach an aircraft requested 04L at JFK rather than 04R that most others were landing on. When the tower asked him whether it was for convenience or operational reasons, he said 'convenience' and he was cleared for 04L.

What would be 'convenience' reasons for landing 04L when it is pretty right next to 04R? I could get maybe if parallel runways were separated by terminal buildings, but here I don't get it. The only thing I can think is that it saves them having to wait to cross 04L if they had landed 04R?

I get operational reasons, such as weight, fuel etc, but convenience?

I've no knowledge of the airfield layout but maybe the requested runway was closer to his parking gate?

Not having to wait to cross 04L in between departing traffic sounds pretty convenient to me.

DRUK

Sounds like a good bet, if you land on 04R you can spend a considerable period of time waiting to cross the Left to get to the terminals.

Ah, so as I suspected then. Thanks all.

No, it was VS3.

The controller with a sense of humour was on at that time.