who was at opa locka today?

[H.Agenda]

I waited 2.3 hours with the engines turning for departure..

 

[Sgt. Hartman]

I landed on 9L at about 4 o'clock and the line went all the way back to Miami exec FBO...that must of sucked!!

 

[TXGold]

What was going on? I heard them start to put people in holding when I was coming of A555?

 

[SCT]

Yeah, what is going on at OPF? We are headed that way tomorrow. And a friend called today and told me they have trip there on Wednesday, also.

Sounds like we should put a little extra gas onboard.....

Cheers-

 

[simbo]

People departing late from the Super Bowl?

 

[Hopeless_in_GA]

People arriving early and staying late from what I can tell. We dropped off a customer in Marathon on Firday, then picked him and his family up on Sunday morning for a trip into Ft. Lauderdale Exec. He left for home late Tuesday night.

Lots of crews in and out down there.

 

[nfg2u]

We waited 30 min on the ramp then 2:30 min in line on Taxiway N for a 12 departure. The problem was flow out of the Miami area. Unfortunately the tower did not use a Gate Hold procedure to control the flow of traffic to the runway and cost a lot of operators money and undo frustration. We were told by ground we could wait at the ramp or we could taxi and get in line for 9L, we will call back for engine start and to expect a 30-45 min delay.

What they failed to metion was that they were not holding anyones place in line while waiting on the ramp so whoever fired up and taxied out went before us. I have been through this many times in TEB and fully expected to be contacted for engine start and taxi. I could not believe that they would put 40 or more airplanes on the taxiway all running waiting for a takeoff slot! Ughhhh...

After my partner and I figured out we were getting screwed we fired up and got in the Congo line!!!

Two and a half hours later we were on our way with pax that were not to happy. I can honestly say that they had no control over aircraft spacing in the departure flow, but they could have handled the cluster F#&*#^$ that proceeded it on the ground in OPF. I think it was piss poor planing and oversight from the controllers at KOPF.

I will be inquiring as to why there was not a Gate Hold procedure and hope to not see this happen again when there is a giant event in the area. We are OPF based and they normally do a pretty good job.

My 2 cents...

 

[PseudoName]

New Phrase in AIM

I was in the conga line and watched as a G-IV (managed by AvJet or at least a picture used on their web site), depart VFR and relayed a new phrase on tower frequency when many other pilots who were patiently waiting knew what was going on....

The phrase? "Eat ME!"

Haven't seen that one in the AIM.

 

[heywatchthis]

Dang I guess we got lucky. Landed on FRIDAY about 1200 and depart 0730 MONDAY morning and NO delay of anykind.

 

[Publishers]

If you look in USA today -editorial page-- you will see a snapshot of the departures flowing to NY and to Chicago for all the South Florida airports. While many problems, things that did not help was the weather, the number of arrivals to pick up passengers, the decision early on to not have slots or reservations for Monday figuring 40% of the traffic would leave after the game.
ATC made the call on this some time ago. KOPF or any of the other towers got no real say in the process.

 

[nfg2u]

The problem at KOPF was the horrible way in which the "Tower" handled the flow of traffic on the ground! Everyone knew there was going to be delays and you can't change the separation min needed for flow, but man did they screw the pooch moving aircraft around on the ground!!! They have all the say in what goes on at the airport and I think there was sub-par performance to say the least!

 

[Publishers]

I have sent you comments to ATC as well as the airports director for this private tower.