JFK Needs More RJ'S

[wmuflyguy]

The top 8 flights Depart between 330 and 600p. Probably one of the worst times of day to be going to JFK.

I bet if they looked, ATC caused 90%+ of those delays.

Not to mention in August there was a time we arrived on time and the Delta Ops guy said they had more planes scheduled to be there than they had gates. Good job. What did we do? waited an hour for a gate, making us 45 minutes late.

I have waited 2 hours for a gate there this summer.

 

[slapstick]

Muskycat:
I'm pretty sure that airlines have a lot of flexibility with the slots they are given. We used to carry a United dispatcher from SBN-ORD (commuting to work). When it came out that there was a 2 hour wheels up, he'd get on the phone. Five minutes later, ground would call up and say they need us in the air immediately.
Each airline can swap slots, and most do, looking at international connections, total number of affected passengers, high-mileage customers, etc.
On the shuttle, for example, we'd cancel a 3:30 flight, and the 4:30 flight would get a new ATC callsign (flt 9950) and use the 3:30's slot.

 

[dispatchguy]

We used to carry a United dispatcher from SBN-ORD (commuting to work). When it came out that there was a 2 hour wheels up, he'd get on the phone. Five minutes later, ground would call up and say they need us in the air immediately.

Would this certain UAL Dispatcher have the initials Papa Bravo?

 

[slapstick]

never caught his name.... but wished he'd have been in the back for every leg!

 

[Mike man]

Flight slots are assigned a flight number. So if Delta was taking your flight number (which I highly doubt) then that would be true.

I don't know if Delta does that at JFK but I do know, from personal experience, that United does that at IAD occasionally.

 

[LowlyPropCapt]

I don't know if Delta does that at JFK but I do know, from personal experience, that United does that at IAD occasionally.

US Airways pulls the same trick all the time. My understanding is that the operations folks at the various airlines are able to "bargin" in some ways with the traffic management folks at the centers. Maybe an ATC guy can chime in and tell us how it works?

 

[dispatchguy]

I used to work for a UAX carrier, and once we would get our slot times from UA, if I really needed a plane in a better slot, I would just usually call Center TMU, or the Customer Advocate at System Command Center, and 9 times outta 10, get a better slot time...

The ones we would get from UA would really suck, and they would even violate their own rules on how much delay they would give a UAX flight. It got to calling UA for better times was just a waste of a fone call; that they didnt want to hear from us "lowly" express-folk.