ATC Question, or what was going on on the East Coast Tues?

[John Kirksey]

I was listening to Tuesdays ATC at JFK and PHL from around 5pm that day, and
both airports were basically at a standstill for departures. At PHL planes
were back and forth between tower and clearance getting clearances and
revised clearances. At JFK the tower was relaying clearances to the planes.
Pretty much everyone had their engines shutdown while waiting for "route
approvals". Was this because of storms? There were a couple of times that a
plane would get a revised clearance, but by the time ATC was able to clear a
path to the runway the clearance would be void and they'd shut em back down
waiting for a new clearance. Crazy.

John K.
PP-ASEL

[Peter R.]

John Kirksey > wrote:

> Was this because of storms?

Yes, there was a pretty intense line of thunderstorms that moved into the
area.

Sometimes while working at my PC, if I see an intense line of thunderstorms
on radar moving towards the NY or Boston area, I go to www.liveatc.net and
listen to the live ATC feeds. It makes for a very interesting listen.


--
Peter
























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[Newps]

Tuesday we had a Lufthansa 747 drop out of the sky and land here. Huge
T-storm making its way thru the area. 747 was inbound because he was
running low on fuel. He told us that after we pried it out of him. He
refused to tell ZLC of any problem, just that they were diverting to
Billings. When we start talking to him 35 SE he told us he had 7 tons
of fuel. Refused to tell us how much that was in hours and minutes, as
is standard. He couldn't fly a straight line to the airport because of
the storm. Basically a big 30 mile arc until about a 25 mile final.
Landed without incident. On takeoff he blew over three box signs along
the runway. One of the guys at the tower knows an airline pilot and he
said that the 747-400 burns approx 35,000 pounds per hour. He had
14,000 pounds 30 miles out. It was almost a big day in Billings.



Peter R. wrote:
> John Kirksey > wrote:
>
>
>>Was this because of storms?
>
>
> Yes, there was a pretty intense line of thunderstorms that moved into the
> area.
>
> Sometimes while working at my PC, if I see an intense line of thunderstorms
> on radar moving towards the NY or Boston area, I go to www.liveatc.net and
> listen to the live ATC feeds. It makes for a very interesting listen.
>
>

[Peter R.]

"Peter R." > wrote:

> Sometimes while working at my PC, if I see an intense line of thunderstorms
> on radar moving towards the NY or Boston area, I go to www.liveatc.net and
> listen to the live ATC feeds. It makes for a very interesting listen.

Detroit is getting pounded right now by a strong storm (Thurs, 6/30, 11:32
EST).

Listen here: http://audio.liveatc.net:8012/kdtw.m3u


--
Peter
























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[Matt Whiting]

John Kirksey wrote:

> I was listening to Tuesdays ATC at JFK and PHL from around 5pm that day, and
> both airports were basically at a standstill for departures. At PHL planes
> were back and forth between tower and clearance getting clearances and
> revised clearances. At JFK the tower was relaying clearances to the planes.
> Pretty much everyone had their engines shutdown while waiting for "route
> approvals". Was this because of storms? There were a couple of times that a
> plane would get a revised clearance, but by the time ATC was able to clear a
> path to the runway the clearance would be void and they'd shut em back down
> waiting for a new clearance. Crazy.
>
> John K.
> PP-ASEL
>
>

It was almost that bad again yesterday. My family and I were returning
from vacation and arrived in PHL nearly on time at 2:30 PM. Our
outbound to ELM was scheduled for 4:05. We finally boarded and taxied
out at 6:30. Then the captain came on and said to break out the cell
phones if we desired as we were shutting down for a 30 minute delay or
possibly longer. For about 25 minutes nothing departed. The airport
was eerily silent. Then about 6:55 I heard the roar of a departure and
things began to move reasonably well after that. We took off at about
7:05 or nearly 3 hours late. I heard it blamed on the weather.

I don't know about anyone else, but I hate flying USAir now that they've
mostly relocated to PHL from PIT. I honestly can't remember the last
flight I had through PHL where their wasn't some sort of delay. This
wasn't nearly as big a problem in PIT. I know USAir had some sort of
tiff with PIT, but they've really hurt their service by moving to PHL.
I live about equidistant between PIT and PHL and have no axe to grind
for either city, but I surely did prefer the days when all flights from
ELM went through PIT rather than PHL. The airport was nicer and the
delays far fewer.


Matt

[Matt Whiting]

Newps wrote:

> Tuesday we had a Lufthansa 747 drop out of the sky and land here. Huge
> T-storm making its way thru the area. 747 was inbound because he was
> running low on fuel. He told us that after we pried it out of him. He
> refused to tell ZLC of any problem, just that they were diverting to
> Billings. When we start talking to him 35 SE he told us he had 7 tons
> of fuel. Refused to tell us how much that was in hours and minutes, as
> is standard. He couldn't fly a straight line to the airport because of
> the storm. Basically a big 30 mile arc until about a 25 mile final.
> Landed without incident. On takeoff he blew over three box signs along
> the runway. One of the guys at the tower knows an airline pilot and he
> said that the 747-400 burns approx 35,000 pounds per hour. He had
> 14,000 pounds 30 miles out. It was almost a big day in Billings.

I'm surprised your runways can handle that weight. :-)


Matt

[Peter R.]

Matt Whiting > wrote:

> I don't know about anyone else, but I hate flying USAir now that they've
> mostly relocated to PHL from PIT. I honestly can't remember the last
> flight I had through PHL where their wasn't some sort of delay. This
> wasn't nearly as big a problem in PIT. I know USAir had some sort of
> tiff with PIT, but they've really hurt their service by moving to PHL.
> I live about equidistant between PIT and PHL and have no axe to grind
> for either city, but I surely did prefer the days when all flights from
> ELM went through PIT rather than PHL. The airport was nicer and the
> delays far fewer.

I concur. The last two times I flew commercial, I flew US Airways and had
to connect through Philly. Absolutely terrible experience as US Airways is
plagued with both a hub airport that cannot handle the volume and a very
low ground crew morale.

On one leg, we landed late into Philly and pulled up to the gate. We
literally sat at the gate for 10 minutes awaiting the arrival of a
"qualified" jetway operator. When the US Airways employee showed up, she
showed absolutely no sense of urgency getting to her post and positioning
the jetway up against the aircraft. I almost didn't make my connection.

--
Peter


















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[Matt Whiting]

Peter R. wrote:

> Matt Whiting > wrote:
>
>
>>I don't know about anyone else, but I hate flying USAir now that they've
>>mostly relocated to PHL from PIT. I honestly can't remember the last
>>flight I had through PHL where their wasn't some sort of delay. This
>>wasn't nearly as big a problem in PIT. I know USAir had some sort of
>>tiff with PIT, but they've really hurt their service by moving to PHL.
>>I live about equidistant between PIT and PHL and have no axe to grind
>>for either city, but I surely did prefer the days when all flights from
>>ELM went through PIT rather than PHL. The airport was nicer and the
>>delays far fewer.
>
>
> I concur. The last two times I flew commercial, I flew US Airways and had
> to connect through Philly. Absolutely terrible experience as US Airways is
> plagued with both a hub airport that cannot handle the volume and a very
> low ground crew morale.
>
> On one leg, we landed late into Philly and pulled up to the gate. We
> literally sat at the gate for 10 minutes awaiting the arrival of a
> "qualified" jetway operator. When the US Airways employee showed up, she
> showed absolutely no sense of urgency getting to her post and positioning
> the jetway up against the aircraft. I almost didn't make my connection.
>

Funny, had the same thing happen on my inbound this week! However, the
wait was about 10 minutes as in your case and this was nothing compared
to the three hour delay on the outbound.

Matt