Originally Posted by
westcoastman
After the problems with B6 I am now aware that a lot of problems have to do with the FAA and the airport controllers themselves and not enough back up gates and not allowing an airline to use another airlines' gate to unload comfortably trapped passengers because that airline does not pay for the gate.
To that end, the number of gates some airports may have is capped (usually as a sop to the neighbors who want to restrict the number of flights). DCA, for example, is limited to 44 gates. Gate utilization is very high, and in case of irregular operations due to bad weather, there just isn't anywhere to put extra planes. If aircraft got stuck for an extended period of time out on the tarmac because there was not place for them to park, it would be an example of unintended consequences of well-meaning legislation. Difficult to blame the airlines for that.