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Why don't late flights, once en route, get prioritized in the air and at the airport

Why don't late flights, once en route, get prioritized in the air and at the airport

Old Jun 23, 2022, 4:45 pm
  #16  
 
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Good luck getting the different airlines to agree to having their on time flights depart late and arrive late because another plane is late arriving.

I was on a flight from DAL to LGA which waited for late arriving passengers resulting in the flight cancellation since LGA has a curfew. I switched to AA DFW to EWR for future flights.
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Last edited by TGarza; Jun 25, 2022 at 3:44 pm
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Old Jun 23, 2022, 5:07 pm
  #17  
 
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Originally Posted by mtofell
Ground crew ops are kind of a mystery. Just recently (and to OP's point) my inbound plane had to sit and wait due to a mechanical issue with the plane occupying our gate. The problematic lane was fixed and left the gate about two hours late. At this point the inbound plane had sat away from the gate for about 90 minutes. So, gate is empty but nothing happened. The pilots for my flight were mulling around and I asked them what was going on and they said there was no ground crew available. So, it was another 45 minutes before the plane could pull in. I would have thought that we'd get into some priority line for a ground crew since we were already late but I guess not.

The airport was OGG (Maui) which is usually okay but it doesn't take much for things to go sideways. I suppose the same can be said for any airport.
I was flying private out of OGG once and the tower delayed our departure so bad my pilot buddy ripped them on the radio. Upon our return we had to call the senior supervisor. Turns out the staff at OGG had a personal vendetta against my friend and enjoyed making his life miserable.
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Old Jun 23, 2022, 10:00 pm
  #18  
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Originally Posted by COSPILOT
I was flying private out of OGG once and the tower delayed our departure so bad my pilot buddy ripped them on the radio. Upon our return we had to call the senior supervisor. Turns out the staff at OGG had a personal vendetta against my friend and enjoyed making his life miserable.
Just curious - when you say that "Upon our return we had to call the senior supervisor" - did the tower require you to call or, in order to report the controllers' behaviors, you had to call?

David
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Old Jun 23, 2022, 10:15 pm
  #19  
 
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Originally Posted by DELee
Just curious - when you say that "Upon our return we had to call the senior supervisor" - did the tower require you to call or, in order to report the controllers' behaviors, you had to call?

David
Tower asked him to call. Its a long back story of when he worked at Hawaiian Airlines. These two apparently dont get along.
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Old Jun 23, 2022, 10:39 pm
  #20  
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Originally Posted by COSPILOT
Tower asked him to call. It’s a long back story of when he worked at Hawaiian Airlines. These two apparently don’t get along.
Wow. There's a bunch rolled up together there. Does he still fly into OGG?

David
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Old Jun 23, 2022, 10:54 pm
  #21  
 
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Originally Posted by DELee
Wow. There's a bunch rolled up together there. Does he still fly into OGG?

David
No, he is in Montana now. Ive never seen him get so mad on the radio. We had flown together multiple times, but that day the tower upset him (I was fine). It was only during our island hopping that day that he told me what happened between the two of them. I wont share details but I believe my friend did the right thing.

I wanted to fly to Midway, half joking as I knew we didnt have the fuel for it, nor was it allowed anymore. He was so upset he didnt care and said fly wherever you want Jeff. So I island hopped for hours while he sat mostly silent. I was in the middle of a divorce, so my life wasnt spectacular at the time either.

Back on topic, the annoyance was that the tower held us for almost 30 minutes before we could depart OGG. 182s dont have air conditioning, and it was hot sitting still. He was very vocal and expressed his displeasure.

The history of these two goes back decades, they were even best friends for a while.

Last edited by COSPILOT; Jun 23, 2022 at 11:06 pm
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Old Jun 24, 2022, 1:24 am
  #22  
 
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Originally Posted by COSPILOT
No, he is in Montana now. Ive never seen him get so mad on the radio. We had flown together multiple times, but that day the tower upset him (I was fine). It was only during our island hopping that day that he told me what happened between the two of them. I wont share details but I believe my friend did the right thing.

I wanted to fly to Midway, half joking as I knew we didnt have the fuel for it, nor was it allowed anymore. He was so upset he didnt care and said fly wherever you want Jeff. So I island hopped for hours while he sat mostly silent. I was in the middle of a divorce, so my life wasnt spectacular at the time either.

Back on topic, the annoyance was that the tower held us for almost 30 minutes before we could depart OGG. 182s dont have air conditioning, and it was hot sitting still. He was very vocal and expressed his displeasure.

The history of these two goes back decades, they were even best friends for a while.
Great... now when I fly to/from OGG I'm going to worry the control guy is busy hassling/fighting with pilots rather than paying attention to my plane

That's a crazy story! But not hard to believe given the way people are. Aren't communications and decisions/actions by controllors public (or reviewable, etc.)? Seems like control guy is risking a lot by being a PITA just to be a PITA.
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Old Jun 25, 2022, 10:29 am
  #23  
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Originally Posted by mtofell
Great... now when I fly to/from OGG I'm going to worry the control guy is busy hassling/fighting with pilots rather than paying attention to my plane
I'd be a lot more worried going into NY Tracon airspace. There was an audio clip posted of an N90 controller who took up tons of radio time repeatedly berating a B6 pilot and threatening a 360 for resequencing for not being at the speed the controller would have liked (apparently prior sector never issued a restriction noted as "expect" on the STAR).

If an procedure tells me to expect a fix at a speed and/or altitude but ATC doesn't actually assign that restriction, there is no requirement to comply with it.

Rather than just assigning a speed as the pilot asked several times, the controller spent tons of time cluttering up the frequency with his one-way pissing match. The best part of that being that the controller harped on and on about his need to move traffic efficiently. Well, you know what's not efficient? Chewing out a pilot on the air when a simple "Maintain 220 knots." would have been sufficient.


That's a crazy story! But not hard to believe given the way people are. Aren't communications and decisions/actions by controllors public (or reviewable, etc.)? Seems like control guy is risking a lot by being a PITA just to be a PITA.
Originally Posted by KTME Tower
LEAVE MY AIRSPACE!
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Old Jun 25, 2022, 7:30 pm
  #24  
 
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Originally Posted by Herb687
I'd be a lot more worried going into NY Tracon airspace. There was an audio clip posted of an N90 controller who took up tons of radio time repeatedly berating a B6 pilot and threatening a 360 for resequencing for not being at the speed the controller would have liked (apparently prior sector never issued a restriction noted as "expect" on the STAR).
What airport and STAR was that?

Typically, the altitudes are EXCEPT, the airspeeds are AT. You fly the charted airspeed unless told to do otherwise.
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Old Jun 30, 2022, 10:04 am
  #25  
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Originally Posted by LarryJ
What airport and STAR was that?

Typically, the altitudes are EXCEPT, the airspeeds are AT. You fly the charted airspeed unless told to do otherwise.
I will have to see if I can find the audio clip again. Was several years ago. I'm guessing it was JFK since it was an N90 controller and B6 has a lot more service to JFK than any other N90 airport.

Maybe a previous version of the LENDY STAR? The current LENDY7 has expect LENDY at FL190 and 250 KIAS.

Last edited by Herb687; Jul 1, 2022 at 10:37 am
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Old Jul 1, 2022, 5:09 am
  #26  
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If you are juggling, for example, 10 planes, each with 150 passengers on board, and one of them is already 30 minutes late, and the others are on time, it's tempting to say that you should prioritise the late flight. But if that means making all the other flights a little late, or one of the other flights a lot late, it's probably a worse outcome for the airline and most of its passengers. 150 people are already late and angry. If they are a little later, they probably won't be much angrier. If you make an extra 150 people very late, then you end up with 300 people late and angry. Or you could make an extra 1350 people a little late and, depending upon the circumstance, you leave all 1500 people with a bad impression of your airline.
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Old Jul 10, 2022, 6:48 pm
  #27  
 
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If a plane is late, it is absent from the queue (takeoff or landing) so others in the queue is advanced by one notch each. Then when the late plane shows up and is given priority, others give back the notch they each gained, suffering on average a net delay caused by the late plane of zero.

Or did I miss something?
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Old Jul 10, 2022, 6:53 pm
  #28  
 
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Originally Posted by AllanJ
If a plane is late, it is absent from the queue (takeoff or landing) so others in the queue is advanced by one notch each. Then when the late plane shows up and is given priority, others give back the notch they each gained, suffering on average a net delay caused by the late plane of zero.

Or did I miss something?
Um.... couple of things..A plane cannot just "jump the queue"... let's assume it fails to leave the gate on time, it has to request a new departure slot. There is no physical way for a plane to bump into a line. Also, the planes have been given the new slots... you can't just take them back as there are other considerations (eg, the anti-freeze pads in the winter or the gaps between landing flights and takeoffs, etc). If you're late, you're late, end of story.
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Old Jul 18, 2022, 3:23 pm
  #29  
 
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There's a dozen reasons why an aircraft could "just sit" there after door closes. Since this was a small airport, I'm betting this wasn't the ground crew. Maybe there was an issue with the final weights and performance. Maybe the wind shifted and the takeoff runway was changed. This happened to me just last night WHILE we were pushing back. It takes a few minutes to reprogram the FMC and double check the thrust numbers and V-speeds. We also have to go over the new departure procedure and single engine procedures if there are any. It could have been an ATC reroute. That also takes 5 or 10 minutes to reprogram the FMC and make sure there's a enough fuel on board. There could have been last minute maintenance paperwork to finish up. If its something minor and the thing is fixed or MEL'd we can still close the door to get things going while waiting on maintenance control to send the final sign off via ACARS or over the phone. They could have also been waiting for a EDCT time (wheels up) time issued by ATC. This is pretty common for going into a hub and if at a small airport its certainly more prudent to not run the engines if you have to.

Once airborne, ATC has no idea if you're late or not. But the pilots will try to go faster, (burning more fuel) and they will ask for shortcuts. This can save a few minutes, but thats about it. If available they can ask for a closer runway, but that is not always available depending on how busy it is. DFW, in general, arrivals coming from the east will last on the east complex, west arrivals on the west side, regardless of the terminal. If it's really busy, there's no changing sides. If not busy, ATC will often accommodate aircraft parking on the opposite complex.

Once on the ground, its difficult to prioritize late aircraft. About the only thing that the airline itself can do is to make sure there's an open gate at the hub, and they already do this anyway. Ramp controllers will hold the push of one aircraft if another is coming in behind it, for example.

Summary. They do trying to prioritize late flights, but its not always possible.
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Old Jul 18, 2022, 3:46 pm
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When the cabin is ready to depart (door closed, jetbridge retracted) but we don't push back right away it is usually waiting for the final bags to be loaded and/or waiting for our pushback clearance.

The ramp personnel can see the status of checked bags and cargo for the flight on their wireless/scanning devices. They know if checked bags are missing and will wait without the guidelines that have been established for them. We don't have that information up front. We just see that a cargo door is still open.

Depending on the airport, our pushback can be delayed by other traffic and congestion on the ramp. DEN is one of the best with all of the room they have which allows us to push straight back without getting in the way of arrivals or departures from nearby gates. EWR and LAX are the worst. Single alleys mean that a pushback will block incoming arrivals as well as other pushbacks.

Less frequency, we are still preparing the cockpit (when we arrived late from our last inbound flight), are dealing with a maintenance issue (waiting for the paperwork to come over ACARS), programming an ATC re-route, or modifying our flight plan with dispatch.
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