There are several airports in Mexico that have interesting runway configurations. That would be no taxiways, just the runway and the ramp. So, one airplane lands-stops-turns 180 degrees on the runway and taxis back to the ramp/terminal area. Most of these airports are scrambling to build taxiways, though. The demand for air travel to Mexican resort areas is soaring, which of course, is good for me. I'll take all the Mexican flying I can get... I love it.
This afternoon, we are leaving Los Cabos with 124 passengers (fully loaded A319), most of them sun-burned and hung over, but looking stress free and happy. We have been waiting our turn for over 40 minutes, with one engine turning, and are now number two for departure. However, looking out my left side window, I can see a 757 on the instrument approach about to turn toward the airport. That translates to: We will have to wait for it to land after this A319 clears the runway. Before we landed, though, I emailed my dispatcher and requested an extra ton of fuel for this very possibility.
Just like the military... Hurry up and wait.
6 comments:
Could the 319 wait without any engines running, and just the APU powered up? Question for all you bloggers, where did you learn to fly, and your highest rating? Richmor Aviation, NY. Soon to be private pilot
That is the problem in Mexico at the moment. Even in late 90s, only a few airports had large numbers of operations per day (MMMX, MMMY, MMAA, MMUN, MMTJ and MMGL). The operations in the rest of the airports were not large enough to justify a taxiway running parallel to the runway.
Nowadays the increase in the number of operations requires taxiways. Dave, take a look at the charts from MMLO. Imagine the scenario between 7 AM and 8 AM in 2003: 5 commercial flights leaving between 7 and 7:30 AM. 4 commercial flights arriving in the same interval, PLUS a significant number of GA operations. No APP radar service (it became operational late in 2003). If RWY 13 is the active, you better get some additional fuel on board!
laxoctane17- yep, you could wait with the APU only running and I do that when I am stuck behind 50 aircraft waiting and storms have the airport closed. If you have to move the aircraft every 10 minutes or so, it's not worth it to keep re-starting the engines, not to mention the fact that the Airbus is a very complex aircraft and you are asking for maintenance trouble with multiple engine starts, as in computer malfunctions.
Just bumbed into your blogg. It's great! Read all the old posts in an instant.
A lot of the fuel waste from long ground waits could be avoided through better airport design and ground procedures. Think about a side-by-side, parallel, parking area rather than queuing up in serial on a taxiway.
With parallel storage, there would be no need to move up every 10 minutes. Just sit and wait, engines off, ground control gives a ten minute warning that your slot is next. A purpose built wait apron could have GPU and conditioned air hookups to save on APU fuel.
Of course, airports have no incentive to consider anything like this as they're not the ones paying for taxi fuel.
Its nice to see someone that likes flying in Mexico. Most guys I know are not big fans of flying down there (present company included). I still marvel at the sub-par performance of the aircraft as we depart some of the high elevation airports down there.
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