JFK Operations

[Doug Taylor]

Alrighty, it seems that after the "high profile" near misses in the past few weeks, it seems like both departures and arrivals are starting to REALLY stack up.

Seemingly, and of course I don't have the data to show, but last year was a scene out of "Dante's Inferno", this year seemed like a massive improvement, but in the last few weeks, it seems like taxi times are way up and the "Conga Lines" have gotten much longer and slower.

Have there been procedural changes or is it managerial with too many Chiefs and too few Indians to do the work?

Any insight will be more than appreciated.

And if it's something discrete you don't want on the internet, a PM would be appreciated. You tell me what speed you want to the marker, or intersection takeoffs, we'll call it evens-stevens.

[Dan208B]

I have to agree, it seems like in the last couple weeks, "conga lines" are definitely getting longer, as well as arrivals. Had a 3 hour EDC time out of CMH the other day to JFK...

[TFaudree_ERAU]

If I'm not mistaken, they can't shoot the gap any more, meaning that they have to ensure the arrival will be down and stopped before the intersection. Apparently, the controllers have said this is the way it needed to be all along, but the FAA said to keep things moving the old way.

I hate to say it, but maybe now the airlines will see the hell they've caused with the ridiculous flight scheduling practices of the last 10 years.

[Fox Xray]

Doug... I don't think I have ever held for JFK as much as I have in the last few weeks, I'm holding for JFK at 11 PM at night ? Other then a swap night I don't ever remember that just for volume.

After the 2 close calls the FAA has suspended the procedures they were using, basically the intersecting flight path two runway ops. We were told in a briefing that the suspension of that procedure is conservatively costing JFK 20 ops and hour.

You probably do not see too much holding because the international arrivals do get favored to limit holding.

Expect JFK to be a mess UFN ...

[mtsu_av8er]

ATC: "CHQXXXX, I'm gonna have to give you a few 90 degree turns for spacing into JFK".

ME: "Well, we can slow if you need us to . . . "

ATC: "No I need you to keep your speed at 310 or greater!!"

Hmmm . . . efficiency!

[dispatchguy]

I listen to liveatc.net a lot, and the way Dennis, a very cool JFK Tower Controller (good flight, great day) explained it last week was that they need to have 15 miles in trail for the 22 landers when landing 22; the 22 landers must most definitely be on the deck before they can launch a 13R departure. They want the 22R landers to be off by Juliet or earlier before they can kick the 13R outta town.

And yes, Dennis didnt seem all that happy about it. How about just make the 22s a LAHSO to exit NLT Juliet, and that if you're going to do an unannounced go, make an immediate turn to at least 130 or less and make that the published rejected landing procedure, and make all the 13R departures an immediate turn to 150 or greater when you're conducting LAHSO...

ORD does LAHSO on 22R to hold short 27L all the time and they dont seem to have the problem that JFK has, however, I doubt any of the foreign carriers can do LAHSO, and those JFK has in spades, even then, it could help their acceptance rate a little bit...

But, what do I know, I just play with Jepps for a living...

[canadian_atc]

Originally Posted by mtsu_av8er

ATC: "CHQXXXX, I'm gonna have to give you a few 90 degree turns for spacing into JFK".

ME: "Well, we can slow if you need us to . . . "

ATC: "No I need you to keep your speed at 310 or greater!!"

Hmmm . . . efficiency!

It can be hard to explain from a controllers point of view, but as a controller that makes perfect sense in my mind, and I can think of several traffic scenarios where that would apply.

Doug, if it answers your question any, last summer we had the odd day where we had to provide spacing for JFK, now its pretty standard everyday 20 in trail ROA (Regardless of altitude), some days we need to put you oceanic guys over specific fixes so everyone is in one long trail from 67West all the way to ROBER 20 miles in trail, makes for an interesting day for us when Boston asks for us to initiate that.

All I have to say about delays into JFK, well guys need to blame their airlines, everyone wants to fly there, and as the last few weeks has shown the acceptance rate of those runways is at the maximum a large portion of the day, throw in any kinks into that, and now you have bigtime backups, not unlike driving on the highway with 500 cars in a row, first guy taps the brake, and at the end of the line nobodys moving at all...

"Category 5 Thunderstorm" over JFK had the airport completely closed today, and airplanes holding 300-400NM away, diverting to Bangor/Boston/Philly etc

[Cruise]

We had a crazy amount of diverts into SYR on the 27th due to the TS down in NYC. I got to watch much of it going down as I was baby sitting a busted plane for a majority of the day. Lots of flights from across the pond. Was bad because none of the pax could deplane because of the lack of a sufficient sized custom/ immigration and the lack of gate space. The ramps in SYR looked like a crazy parking lot full of the major players. Several Delta 75/ 76's, USAir had many 76's and an A330 parked. AA and CAL had their share of heavies parked as well. A KLM 747 dropped by for a couple hours too....Sweet, don't get to see those landing in SYR often. The rampers were pulling their hair out.....since most of the ramp service at the airport is contracted by Landmark. Those guys/ gals were über-busy and running around like crazy.

Any chance you were one of the lucky DAL 76's in SYR that day, Dough?