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Old Jul 7, 2016, 9:53 am
  #18  
HDQDD
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: RDU
Programs: DL DM+(segs)/MM, UA Ag, Hilton DM, Marriott Ti (life Pt), TSA Opt-out Platinum
Posts: 3,227
Originally Posted by LBJ
With fewer flights, DTW/MSP generally recover more quickly from TS events than ATL.
I would argue that makes recovery (from a pax perspective) worse, since there are less flight options to most cities. In some cases (Southeast for one) ATL has ~3x as many flights to some cities than DTW or MSP.

As a DM, I usually find that if I miss my connection in ATL, I can usually get IROPed on another flight within 1-2 hours.

Additionally, ATL has five parallel runways (triple simultaneous IMC arrivals). With perfect conditions they can accept 132 arrivals/hour. Even in Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC), they can handle 104-110 arrivals. MSP maxes at 75 (IMC: 48) and DTW at 112 (IMC: 72). This becomes important during "diversion recoveries".

Thunderstorms at the field will screw up any hub operation and likely have effects for many hours after the event. Admittedly, I'm not familiar with DTWs weather, but when I lived in Chicago a few years ago, summer storms were just as prevalent there as ATL (perhaps even more so).
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