So, I’ve been hearing a lot of chatter about airport delays due to understaffing of ATC amongst other issues but I chalked it up to just the recent trending topic with the recent increase of aviation accidents on the news..
How ever I flew out of Newark to fly to Tennessee this past Saturday and spent more then 3 hours in the plane on the Taxiway of Newark only to deboard back at the gate and then an hour later get back in to spend another 1.5 hours in the plane on the taxi way Waiting to leave.. all in all the time spent trapped in the 737 was nearly double the actual flight time.
Now they said the reasons was delays both in the air and on the ground due to weather which there was some bad weather that day but on my foreflight the skies did not look bad enough to ground a airliner and I distinctly remember flying in much worse weather in the past commercially.
Anyone have any ideas what’s going on? I’m currently sitting in Nashville airport now waiting on another delayed flight
Understaffing is a huge one as we constantly see traffic demand exceed capacity at these busy airports. The NYC airspace is especially difficult as a lot of their departures are going South and/or West. If there is weather in any of those corridors, they won’t let you leave. These two things together really make it pile up. The passenger bill of rights and DOT Law is you have to pretty much go back to the gate at 180 minutes if you haven’t taken off yet.
I was on a flight out of SLC yesterday to Denver that was ground stopped after leaving the gate. It was about 40 minutes. They said that Denver ground stopped all inbound traffic so they could get arrivals spaced out.
Incidentally my wife was on a flight out of Boston to Pittsburgh that was similarly ground stopped after leaving the gate. That was weather related though.
