Originally Posted by
chipmaster
Funny how we take travel for granted and of course grumble when weather ( snow, thunderstorm etc. ) cause hours to a few day delays, but it astounds me that when a major transport hub plans an upgrade that takes huge capacity off line the planning response is to go to "delays" versus plan a year ahead of time and force adjust deperatures/arrivals to be consistent with the capacity.
Having been involved in planning for many of these disruptions "back in the day" I can assure you that these things are not taken lightly by anyone. The FAA used to have sort of a "get-used-to-it" attitude, and to a degree it still does, but since the 1980s, there was a definite shift to stakeholder input. That largely came from congressional inquiries into how/why something bad happened that cost the users money and some not-so-fun aftermath dialogue. Now, there are lots of conversations and planning meetings, etc. for these kinds of things. All that said, this is an airport operator (City/County of SF) call, and everyone else, including the FAA, has to make it work. But, again, there is lots of conversation and exchange about it ahead of time.