Interesting irrops - AC 724 on 10/4
Oct 4, 2012, 8:06 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 850
Wirelessly posted (Verizon BlackBerry 9630: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9650; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.719 Mobile Safari/534.8+)
Here's the situation:
AC 724 landed at LGA 8 minutes late, no big deal after a short delay in boarding.
I'm on the plane now and still waiting for a gate to open up. 2 gates available, as one is broken. Since there was wx at LGA, a few AC planes are waiting on the ground.
To recover from this, why doesn't AC use any available gate in the concourse?
Is it beneficial to keep the plane on APU on the tarmac, further delaying pax and crew, than try to finagle another gate?
As a note, electronics and lav use allowed, but no offer of water (I presume one would get some if he asks).
Here's the situation:
AC 724 landed at LGA 8 minutes late, no big deal after a short delay in boarding.
I'm on the plane now and still waiting for a gate to open up. 2 gates available, as one is broken. Since there was wx at LGA, a few AC planes are waiting on the ground.
To recover from this, why doesn't AC use any available gate in the concourse?
Is it beneficial to keep the plane on APU on the tarmac, further delaying pax and crew, than try to finagle another gate?
As a note, electronics and lav use allowed, but no offer of water (I presume one would get some if he asks).
Last edited by gsforfree; Oct 5, 2012 at 6:49 am
Oct 4, 2012, 8:56 pm
#2
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Montreal, Quebec
Posts: 487
Gates at LGA unfortunately are not common use. Gate A6 is undergoing some ramp construction right now, which means some operational challenges at LGA right now. Unfortunately, AC is at the mercy of the Port Authority for projects like these. Should be done very soon. ^
Oct 4, 2012, 9:59 pm
#3
Join Date: Jun 1999
Location: YVR
Programs: ACSEMM QRGold SPGLifetimePlat FairmontPlat HyattD AMEXCenturion SerenaPlat TalkBoard Founding Member
Posts: 8,963
I find posts like this quite odd.
If AC or any airline had an option to use a different gate to avoid a delay they obviously would.
Waste of text.
If AC or any airline had an option to use a different gate to avoid a delay they obviously would.
Waste of text.
Oct 5, 2012, 4:02 am
#4
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: MAN
Programs: BA Silver
Posts: 1,205
Ground crew availability is often an issue. If they've had IROPS (maybe even a red alert due to lightning -- you said there was WX issues at LGA) then everything gets messed up... on-time arrivals pull up to find their ground crew isn't there, because they are occupied elsewhere catching up.
Even if you had heaps of open AC-compatible gates, without a ground crew you can't pull in and get hooked up to ground power. With the cost of fuel I'm confident nobody at AC wants APU's running for the hell of it.
Even if you had heaps of open AC-compatible gates, without a ground crew you can't pull in and get hooked up to ground power. With the cost of fuel I'm confident nobody at AC wants APU's running for the hell of it.
Oct 5, 2012, 6:49 am
#5
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 850
Ground crew availability is often an issue. If they've had IROPS (maybe even a red alert due to lightning -- you said there was WX issues at LGA) then everything gets messed up... on-time arrivals pull up to find their ground crew isn't there, because they are occupied elsewhere catching up.
Even if you had heaps of open AC-compatible gates, without a ground crew you can't pull in and get hooked up to ground power. With the cost of fuel I'm confident nobody at AC wants APU's running for the hell of it.
Even if you had heaps of open AC-compatible gates, without a ground crew you can't pull in and get hooked up to ground power. With the cost of fuel I'm confident nobody at AC wants APU's running for the hell of it.
Oct 5, 2012, 6:57 am
#6
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: MAN
Programs: BA Silver
Posts: 1,205
And even though it was clear when you landed, if there was lightning in the area even 30 minutes before you arrived the ground crews are required to seek shelter and this cause a backup.
Oct 5, 2012, 7:21 am
#7
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Montreal, Quebec
Posts: 487
Gates at most US airports are not common-use; in this case, the computers, printers etc belong to the airline, not the airport, and are often incompatible with each other. And yes, if by chance B6 could provide a gate to AC, AC would have to pay for the use. But from my observations at LGA, B6's gates seemed to be very well utilized, so not sure they would be able to help anyhow.
