LAX Tarmac Delays: waiting for a gate to become free for 2 1/2 hours
Jan 3, 2022, 12:52 am
#1
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LAX Tarmac Delays: waiting for a gate to become free for 2 1/2 hours
Have people had experiences with LAX tarmac delays, awaiting for a gate to become free? I was on MSY-LAX and we were sent to the E17 penalty box and sat there for 2 1/2 hours waiting for a gate to open up after arriving on time. There was rain which didn't help but the pilot was very frustrated and stated that this was a regular nightly event. Another pax near me called Delta Customer Service saying that this happened to him the last time he flew in 6 weeks ago. I know that with T3 being rebuilt and T2 beyond capacity with lots of overflow to TBIT, this still is really awful.
Jan 3, 2022, 5:39 am
#2
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Not sure if you’ve been following but US airlines are cancelling approximately 3,000 flights a day of late. That means schedules are screwed up and more planes are on the ground than normal at any given time. Space-constrained airports like SEA, LAX and LGA run out of gates even in normal operations so it’s not surprising some flights are waiting a long time.
Jan 3, 2022, 5:43 am
#3
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Not sure if you’ve been following but US airlines are cancelling approximately 3,000 flights a day of late. That means schedules are screwed up and more planes are on the ground than normal at any given time. Space-constrained airports like SEA, LAX and LGA run out of gates even in normal operations so it’s not surprising some flights are waiting a long time.
Jan 3, 2022, 6:39 am
#4
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Jan 3, 2022, 7:55 am
#6
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You would have thought several billion dollars in payroll support would mean some wingwalkers and a tug driver would be available within two and a half hours. And there's plenty of places to park a plane for a couple of hours in most airports. Overnight is certainly more of a problem but there are plenty of options for an hour or two if people would get their heads out of their you-know-wheres and think it through.
Jan 3, 2022, 7:56 am
#7
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You would have thought. But no.
Jan 3, 2022, 8:20 am
#8
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I personally haven’t seen/experienced this at LAX, but doesn’t surprise me given the general state of things these days.
Jan 3, 2022, 9:49 am
#9
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Where are they going to put the planes - on the 405 freeway - LAX is already got 10# of crapola in a 5# sock. If they had crew to fly them, then they would fly the plane instead of ferrying them to someplace to wait out the cancellations.
Jan 3, 2022, 9:51 am
#10
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You would have thought several billion dollars in payroll support would mean some wingwalkers and a tug driver would be available within two and a half hours. And there's plenty of places to park a plane for a couple of hours in most airports. Overnight is certainly more of a problem but there are plenty of options for an hour or two if people would get their heads out of their you-know-wheres and think it through.
Jan 3, 2022, 10:05 am
#12
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If the delay were greater than 3 hours, wouldn't the "3 hour rule" kick in? Would they play "musical planes" to let the plane(s) on the tarmac delayed over 3 hours to deplane their pax?
Jan 3, 2022, 10:16 am
#13
Join Date: Aug 2004
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This is a thing with Delta at LAX. It may be exacerbated a bit by IRROPS but it's clearly a function of having every flight arrive at T2, and then some planes are towed over to TBIT for some (usually morning) departures,. Interestingly, this was also a thing for Delta at LAX about 4 years ago before the move to T2-3 and the demolition of T3. So equally clearly something that could be done better. I have no way of counting the number of human hours wasted sitting and waiting nor the knock-on effect of subsequently delayed departures but it has to be significant.
Jan 3, 2022, 10:21 am
#14
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Got to blame Delta for not paring down their schedule. They know they're operating with only so much gates and still act as if T3 is up and functioning with the amount of flights they have scheduled. With that said LAX has a ton of remote gates empty; especially now with TBIT West open. Why DL hasn't tried to use them as bus gates is a mystery.
Jan 3, 2022, 10:23 am
#15
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Almost every delayed flight occupies a gate for longer than necessary. Hopefully DL thinks about gate space at crowded airports when planning schedules and staggers arrivals appropriately, but of course everything gets messed up when there are bad delays affecting many flights.