Hey all first a little background. I used fly the CRJ 2 and 7 for about 9 months prior to getting furloughed. Ive since become a controller and absolutely love it but having been on both sides of the mic some things do strike me as odd.

On several occasions pilots will ask for an opposite direction takeoff on the opposite runway for operational necessity. On all occasions that this has happened I look at the current wind and its always been either a 90 degree crosswind or theyre basically asking for a tailwind on departure.....FOR OPERATIONAL NECCESSITY... Now at first I thought maybe theyre looking at field gradient but all three of our runways are .4 or less which I cant imagine an E-170, 737 or an MD80 would be restricted by. It seems to me that taking off with a 5 or 6 knot tailwind would be more degrading to performance than having a -.4 slope vs a -.3 slope. I assume theyre just trying for the runway closest to the gate. Im not the runway police and could care less, just curious if maybe by chance there really was an operational need. On a similar topic I had a southwest pilot tell me the other day that SWA really stands for seldom wants active LMAO! That was great, I couldnt hardly talk to him I was laughing so much!

Taxi speeds.... In no way do I mean this in a degrading way to any company but 2 carriers tend to stick out. American and Southwest. Sometimes it appears AMerican isnt even moving on their taxi while Southwest sometimes appears ready to rotate. All other carriers tend to be somewhere in between and very similar speeds. Any American and Southwest pilots that could shed some light on reasons would be appreciated. Im assuming it has something to do with the way your contract is written and how you get paid.

As a previous airline pilot I always do my best to provide the best service possible to all you guys and girls out there and would like to think Im one of the more accommodating controllers out there. The more knowledge I have the better I can try to be. Thanks and fly safe!