Call for Release

[goose32]

I will try and explain this as simple as I can.
First off, these programs are designed to mitigate delays and congestion in the two places that they can happen. Either Enroute or actually at the airports themselves.
The airports themselves will generate whats called ground delay programs or EDCTs. These are those times that usually given to u during your clearance if a program was alreaaalready in effect. These times are funneled through the command center and will either be a +/- 5 program or a time with a call for release 15 min prior to that time.

Then there is the standard Call for Release programs that affect aircraft within a cetain radius of busy airports or airspace. We have several "static " release Airports that never change like ATL IAD ORD etc. Sometimes we'll get releases for airports that due to wx or other reasons require a call for release. To pilots. ...we have to call when u taxi or have a firm idea as to when we can get u airborne. We are hitting an airborne time ie when u tag up on radar, time for the center. We have a window of only a.min or.2 thus the reason for being exact.

One other thing ... in the summer months or during thunderstorm season. The center(s) that are impacted by weather to where certain routes are cuttoff will generate EDCTs that are almost always +/- 5 min. These programs are called AFPs or airspace flow programs. This is why u might sometimes see an EDCT to a small airport like ROA RDU or OMA

Excellent post and thanks for the insight. I hate to keep asking what I think is the same question, but is the time to "call" for the release up to the controllers discretion? You say you can call when you can get a "firm idea" of when we can get airborne. Is that not what you get when a Pilot calls you and gives an estimated wheels up time? In my experience, some controllers will call with the time I give them and others wait until a 5 prior to push call or actually taxiing. All scenarios under the same call for release to ATL.

 

[DLconnection]

Call it a technique as to how its done. The point is that we need to hit a time within a few minutes. I like the call for pushbacks at times when we might have one of those EDCT/Call for release 15 min prior programs
Its also helpful when we are preplanning and trying to get ahead of.the game for an outbound departure push with numerous aircraft that need.to be sequenced.
Sometimes a TMU (traffic management ) will call "schedule " these times well in advance so that we have them for the pilots when they call. If it needs to be changed..
so what they call again.to.get another.
another reason for.the.call might be to catch an aircraft at the gate before the bad news of some.major delay or.something. ground stop etch

Again. All technique.

 

[goose32]

I'm slowly understanding how the "call for release" works. So how difficult is it to have to call again? I have been in a situation where we had an unexpected delay, i.e. passenger boarding issue or maybe late fueler and had to ask for a few minute extension. Is it a hassle to do so and is that why some controllers wont bother until you are actually moving?
Also, is there any place to read about how these Air Traffic flow/spacing programs work? Anyone can look in a FAR/AIM and pretty much see how things work on a Pilot's end. Any publications for how ATC works? Thanks again.

 

[DLconnection]

I'm sure that there are some sort of publications out there, but what id recommend is touring a busy ATC facility. From there u can see and learn how they run and manage their traffic. See how volume, weather and other factors play in how the traffic is run.

I also highly recommend visiting the Tracon or artcc that handles the airports that you fly out of the most. You can learn a lot from this and can better plan your flights.

Know that your company dispatchers(if 121) tend to keep in touch with the system command centers during times of big delays and edct programs. They seem to get information before we do believe it or not. The company can actually wheel and deal these times believe it or not with other company flights in the area to decide which flights would better match the airlines schedule requirements. Example. One airplane might have a edct of 1200 z going to EWR from RDU. At the same time a company flight might be broken in RIC also going to EWR with a 1115 time. The company can swap these times to accommodate the flight schedule integrity.

 

[sinkrate]

Call it a technique as to how its done. The point is that we need to hit a time within a few minutes. I like the call for pushbacks at times when we might have one of those EDCT/Call for release 15 min prior programs
Its also helpful when we are preplanning and trying to get ahead of.the game for an outbound departure push with numerous aircraft that need.to be sequenced.
Sometimes a TMU (traffic management ) will call "schedule " these times well in advance so that we have them for the pilots when they call. If it needs to be changed..
so what they call again.to.get another.
another reason for.the.call might be to catch an aircraft at the gate before the bad news of some.major delay or.something. ground stop etch

Again. All technique.

Warning - RANT ON

This is all good stuff and I have understood the program for years. Had no problems with it for many years. But in recent years ....TMU and local facilities at class D airports are completely blind to our problem. And from your answer, respectfully - you are too.

For a lot of aircraft if the destination is short flight flight and needs an alternate we get trapped in a fuel problem. The heavier the payload the worse the problem. By reg I must have X thousand pounds of fuel on board at gear up, but if I am just a little bit over that I will be overweight for landing. You must manage your taxi fuel very tightly. Again - I did this for many years with no problems.

Sooo.....when the flight is full and the weather lousy I must make a decision at the gate. To make room for more taxi fuel I must bump passengers - usually the jumpseaters and non revs - and maybe a few revenue passengers too. So I call delivery and ask them about flow programs. They tell me none are in effect or they will call for release when we call for taxi, expect no more than a few minutes. We will fill all the seats and plan a maximum of a ten minute taxi. I will even call when we are starting engines and get the same reply.

When we call for taxi is when it gets ugly. They wait until then to give us the thirty minute delay. Now I have two options - shut down somewhere or return to the gate for more fuel. Big pain in the a** that is. But wait - the ramp is already occupied by a deplaning flight. So we want to shut down somewhere but the airport planners didn't build a pad big enough. Which taxi way do you want us to shut down on? We don't have any, we will keep you moving, Unable - we don't have the fuel for it. Return to the ramp. The little ramp is full.

All ATC had to do to avoid this conflict is communicate. As the original poster said - I can give you a hard time we will be ready. ATC can't plan ahead twenty minutes for a requested gear up time? They are planning 30 minutes ahead when they finally give me one so I know that is horse hockey.

For many years I had no problem negotitiating these things. The problem is not new. The people on the other end of the radio are though.

Call it a technique as to how its done

I agree, ATC needs to find the one they used before. It worked.

Rant off

 

[glasspilot]

How can you be between max landing and min fuel? Is your alternate so far way it cone close to max range of the plane? (max range minus the differance of MGLW and MZFW)

What type aircraft and please give city pairs and the alternate where this is a problem. I'm curious now how that could happen with enough regularity to warrant a "rant".

 

[amcflyboy]

Welcome to OAJ and the wrath of ILM app.

OAJ, as in Jacksonville, NC??

 

[Lrjtcaptain]

I get further away equals more flexibility. But "the closer you are the more planes there are to factor in" I must disagree with. If you draw a smaller circle between departure and destination then there are obviously fewer planes in that smaller circle...not more.

The only issue I could see would be that of time and finding a gap. TEC should help on the shortest of the short city pairs to help find that gap.

To the OP: did you put "request TEC" in the remarks?

Yes, but take this into account. Go on flightaware sometime and look at all the arrivals into a major hub like ATL. Factoring in only 1 airport lets say ATL in this case where the en route aircraft compress in at the arrival corridors on a given STAR you will see the congestion begin to arise. Take an airport like Mobile that in theory could get direct to some point on the STAR immediately after departure and that is where you need to look at what is in the overhead stream. Now go further out, lets say KCLE. The controllers have more wiggle room to get you in the overhead stream due to speed restrictions, different transitions etc...

 

[sinkrate]

How can you be between max landing and min fuel? Is your alternate so far way it cone close to max range of the plane? (max range minus the differance of MGLW and MZFW)

What type aircraft and please give city pairs and the alternate where this is a problem. I'm curious now how that could happen with enough regularity to warrant a "rant".

For a CRJ the max ZFW is 44K and the max landing weight is 47K. That gives us 3K pounds of fuel to land with without bumping payload. That works fine if the destination is VFR. If you add an alternate you will have a reduced max payload because you will be landing with more than 3K of fuel. Now, if I have a two hour leg in front of me I can change altitudes and cruise speeds to deal with whatever fuel I have on board at gear up. If we had a long ground hold I can fly slower and climb higher than planned. If we see we are going to land overweight we descend and pick the speed up. We work the problem before we join the arrival.

If it is a 45 minute leg into a busy hub you don't have these options. You are going to get the arrival, speed (slow) and altitude (low) center needs you on in saturated airspace. Since it is a short flight you are filed low to start with. If I take off heavy there is very little way to get rid of the fuel without a major fight with some ATC facility.

This problem isn't unique to a CRJ. I've been booted off the jumpseat of 72's for it and I know a Purple CA that was booted of the JS of a purple MD for it.

I hate leaving jumpseaters behind because ATC has their heads in a dark place. Like I said in my first post. The problem ain't new, we negotiated with TMU for a long time with no problem. What is new is TMU's refusal to work with you.

Try this one. TMU insists that to go from Omaha to MEM we must go via Garden City Kansas and Dallas. Spent thirty minutes trying to get it changed. They gave me the choice of accepting it or cancelling, no other options. As soon as we were airborne ATC commented 'I don't know where this route came from, you are cleared direct'. We had to decline it for fuel weight.

 

[DLconnection]

Being that I have seen this situation from both sides of the mic, I can confidently say that i am not in the dark on this one. (and yes, ive flown the CRJ too)

What are we talking about here? We are talking about information being passed along EFFICIENTLY to allow both sides to be informed, to help operators plan (fuel,pax,etc) and for flights to operate on time with minimal delays.

Referring to your previous statement about leaving jumpseaters, non revs or other paying customers for that matter. The airlines are guilty of this too. How many times has your dispatchers given u an outbound load restriction on the number of pax/cargo because u have had to carry too much gas, then only to find out that the wx has cleared up and now u dont need to be rerouted or dont need that 1st/2nd alternate and could have taken more passengers.

On the ATC end. there are several layers to the cake. your terminal facilities will work with you and pass along information as its received. remember that the centers are constantly giving the terminal facilities new routings based on the traffic flows in and out of their airspace. guess what... those centers are also given restrictions and routings to their adjacent centers because of things that impact their airspace. ie... ZID is affected from traffic saturation or thunderstorms at DFW which intern causes ZDW to react which then leads to ZID changing the routing to their flow into the area which causes a possible swap route into the DFW area. Oh wait... The command center now seeing this calls for a ground delay program going into DFW. you get the point. This structure is dynamic and is affected by a number of things. so before you continue to rant on about how ATC is in the dark, id argue that its the other way around.

 

[FO4life]

First time this happened to me in all the years I've been flying. two weeks ago had a flight from HDN - RDG. Two small airports both were clear blue and a million. got an hour and a half delay from denver and he "couldn't " give me a reason just that Traffic management said no.

 

[glasspilot]

For a CRJ the max ZFW is 44K and the max landing weight is 47K. That gives us 3K pounds of fuel to land with without bumping payload.

What? What does the difference between MLW and MZFW have to do with it? You can land below you MZFW. You can land above MZFW too. Also, you can takeoff above your MLW. I really don't see your point here.

That works fine if the destination is VFR. If you add an alternate you will have a reduced max payload because you will be landing with more than 3K of fuel. Now, if I have a two hour leg in front of me I can change altitudes and cruise speeds to deal with whatever fuel I have on board at gear up. If we had a long ground hold I can fly slower and climb higher than planned. If we see we are going to land overweight we descend and pick the speed up. We work the problem before we join the arrival.

If it is a 45 minute leg into a busy hub you don't have these options. You are going to get the arrival, speed (slow) and altitude (low) center needs you on in saturated airspace. Since it is a short flight you are filed low to start with. If I take off heavy there is very little way to get rid of the fuel without a major fight with some ATC facility.

If its a 45 minute flight why is taking off heavy a problem? Just take less gas. You don't need it as it's a 45 minute flight. Like I said in my previous post, how could this be a problem unless your alternate is VERY far away.

This problem isn't unique to a CRJ. I've been booted off the jumpseat of 72's for it and I know a Purple CA that was booted of the JS of a purple MD for it.

I hate leaving jumpseaters behind because ATC has their heads in a dark place. Like I said in my first post. The problem ain't new, we negotiated with TMU for a long time with no problem. What is new is TMU's refusal to work with you.

Try this one. TMU insists that to go from Omaha to MEM we must go via Garden City Kansas and Dallas. Spent thirty minutes trying to get it changed. They gave me the choice of accepting it or cancelling, no other options. As soon as we were airborne ATC commented 'I don't know where this route came from, you are cleared direct'. We had to decline it for fuel weight.

Also, there is never (almost) a reason to bump a jumpseater. They only weigh 180 lbs and I can find that in rounding errors. Seriously, a carry on is 10 lbs. Just move 18 of 'em into the cabin and the JS goes. Easy.

 

[Clutch]

Also, there is never (almost) a reason to bump a jumpseater. They only weigh 180 lbs and I can find that in rounding errors. Seriously, a carry on is 10 lbs. Just move 18 of 'em into the cabin and the JS goes. Easy.

The problem usually is that the fueler has already fueled the RJ before someone has a chance to give the guy a lower fuel load. That and ACARS leaves you very little room to work with. Sometimes you can enter the weights all sorts of ways and there just isn't a solution. If you use a "whiz-wheel" no problem, but ACARS, not so much.

Some airlines prohibit carry-ons in the cabin. Only "personal items".... I don't give a rat's hymen what they take on, I'm just saying that some do.

Also, which airlines list carry-ons as 10 lbs?

 

[glasspilot]

Also, which airlines list carry-ons as 10 lbs?

ACA did, however that was 6 years ago and they're defunct now. At the time a carry on weighed 10 lbs if it was checked in the cargo and zero if it was in the cabin (actually it was simply included in the pax average weight, but that's the same thing as zero really).

So you just move 18 of them into the cabin and you magically have the weight for the JS. Weather you actually move them or not is up to you. Point is there's never (almost) a valid reason to leave a JS behind.

 

[Clutch]

So you just move 18 of them into the cabin and you magically have the weight for the JS. Weather you actually move them or not is up to you. Point is there's never (almost) a valid reason to leave a JS behind.

Technically, that's prohibited. Any other solutions?