Originally Posted by
laxmillenial
That being said, I did fly this in the past month and a unique delay that irked me was the fact that United said it could not taxi a 747 to my gate because of the fact that there was congestion on SFO taxiways. For 2.5 hours. Despite the plane having been in the hanger since the night before. To my knowledge, no other plane departing SFO was delayed for a similar reason, even other 747 flights, only mine.
Things I learned flying the 744 SFO-LHR not too long ago:
* The chronic delay despite half-empty planes was most likely due to London's morning fog forecast. LHR has a slot and curfew problem. My last 3 flights LAX-LHR arriving at noon they just make you do loops over England, but a 7 am arrival you get loops and also departure control time based on forecast reduced capacity.
* SFO I-G does have a gate crunch. They can't keep planes from Asia arriving 7-11 am at the gate for your 12-2 pm departure, so they have to tow each of them twice.
* SFO does have a taxiway congestion problem that's much worse after 2 pm than before. Listening to Channel 9, the taxi instructions were so step-by-step. Go a block and stop and wait and go again, all the way from G-gates to the mid-field runway intersections.