nrr

(1) For nearly every airport I've landed at when the pilot announces "FAs prepare the cabin for landing" we land 10 minutes later--at JFK it is exceptional to land 10 minutes later, normally 20 minutes (or even an hour later)...why is JFK so off kilter?
(2) I take 1263 JFK to LAS (non-stop) fairly often [dep. 7:30 AM]; two taxiways merge shortly before reaching the t/o runway; there are normally 3 Jet Blue planes ahead of 1263, yet 1263 departs before the JBs--why does AA get preference (over JB)?

Acid

I don't remember AA pilots making announcements for 10 mins to landing as regularly as BA always does for T-40/20. I've experienced more circling at LHR/BOM than ever at JFK.
Last year we were circling for an hour over Mumbai on BA and the pilot mentioned per BA rules, they cannot exit the holding pattern unless cabin is cleared for landing and all passengers are seated. They are more particular. I've not seen any US based airline enforce these.

sportsguymichael

I agree with your thoughts on JFK. It seems like it is always 20-30 minutes. Not sure about your other point, but I will be on 1263 in June so I will report back!!

ty97

I've found that we descend to 10K (or in that range) often pretty far out for NYC airports, as compared to other airports. I'm guessing that may play into #1 .

I presume we descend so early due to all the traffic in the vicinity, to allow other planes to overfly the arriving planes, but that's only a guess.

ijgordon

I think because it's like the deli counter where you take a number, not like McDonald's where you wait in a physical line.

truthknown

NYC is very complicated airspace. To fully understand why, you need some understanding of Air Traffic Control, but I can share my knowledge. In NYC, the terminal airspace is split between the 3 large airports, EWR, LGA, and JFK, EWR has a ton of space to the west, JFK has a ton on space to the east and LGA has the slot in the middle with traffic coming in from the north or south. For JFK in particular, there are a lot of possible runway configurations and the time it takes to vector a place through the crowded airspace largely depends on that, but by and large, planes going into JFK are sequenced over the ocean and put in a line that wraps around to the active runway. For planes coming in from the west, they cross over a waypoint called LENDY at 19000 ft. They are then vectored over JFK toward the ocean (this could be north or south of JFK depending on the landing runway) and further descended. Captains will normally ask for landing preparation nearing around 10K feet. But for JFK, a plane can hit 10K and still have a long way to go in the sequence of vectoring before it actually touches down.

The shortest time would be for arrivals coming from the east when landing on runway 22L or 31R. The longest time is usually for arrivals from the west when landing on the VOR 13L approach or visual 13L approach. Planes cannot do straight in approaches to 13L from the west because of the conflicting LGA airspace (unless weather is so bad that it forces other airspace to change temporarily to accommodate). The vectoring paths used for 13L are almost identical for landings on 4R. Arrivals from the west typically have the longest vectoring time regardless of runway configuration due to the need to get the plane over NYC and out to the ocean before sequencing into the arrival stream to the runway.

For your second question, departures are also sequenced by their departure waypoint. This is the first enroute waypoint on their flight plan that they are vectored to after takeoff. ATC will sequence departures to avoid back to back departures doing to the same waypoint or group of waypoints in the same direction. So while there may be 3 JetBlue aircraft ahead, it may be best for sequencing to let the AA flight go first and so they will skip the AA flight to the front of the line, otherwise to accommodate spacing, all would have to wait, which is naturally inefficient.

reeg2

Into DFW, it's almost always 20-30 mins to landing.
In fact, 10 minutes sounds awfully short and in error.