Can someone explain to a person who doesn't know much about the -121 world how bidding for departure slots will ease the congestion at the 3 major NYC airports? I mean if there are X number of departures per hour under the current system and under this new plan they offer the same number of slots but airlines are able to bid for certain times - how does that alleviate congestion? It was reported that delays from those 3 particular airports are responsible for up to 60% of the delays nation wise!

USMCFLYR

 

Under a system of slots, the airport and FAA determine how many take-offs and landings they can handle an hour and that is the number of slots. At an airport without slots, any airline is free to operate as many flights as they want. If for example, three different airlines want a 3 pm departure, they can schedule it. Obviously, only one can take off at 3 pm, the other two will be a few minutes late, but that has the tendency to make everything late. Under a slot, all three airlines bid for the 3 pm slot and the winner gets the 3pm, the other two cannot operate their flight.
Clear as mud.

 

Clear as mud if they are ONLY going to allow one take-off every 3 minutes for example - therefore those 3 airlines asking for the 3 pm take-off would take 3 minutes to get into the air. I'm going to assume that under the current system you might have 9 aircraft all lined up for takeoff because they wanted to get out of there at 3 pm, but they would all be airborne within that same 9 minute window. I can see that if only 1 aircraft is taking off every 3 minutes that there might be some down time while flights wait for their slot and then someone is going to yell inefficency because they will ask why are airplanes sitting in the hold short waiting for a controlled take-off time - wasting time and gas.

If an airport can only handle a take-off every 3 minutes then what is the difference which 3 airplanes takeoff in what order?

Also - if a certain flight has a 3 pm departure slot and all other slots are taken up for the enitre hour; and for a variety of reasons that flight pushed back late and was unable to make it's slot, then how do they fit into the flow? Is there an open slot every 5th time slot for stragglers for example?

I understand that a lot of smart people are working on this system so I'm sure that these problems and procedures have been discussed - I'm just asking for someone to *explain* it to me because like I said - I do not have any knowledge of -121 operations. I do know that *we* have a hard time making a take-off time and when the squadrons have even attempted to say that if we are more than 5 minutes late for take-off then we will cancel the flight; well.....that lasts for a about a day until you lost 50-60% of the training scheduled!

Thanks for the input.

USMCFLYR

 

Slot bidding would involve limitations. The airport authority and/or FAA would determine how many slots can be realistically handled. These would be auctioned to the highest bidder...

If you already have significantly more traffic than the field can handle, there will be fallout...

- The losers will have to shift to off-peak times, or drop service.

- A lot of competetion would mean high prices at the auction...the winners would have to pass that cost on to the pax.

- There would then be less service, or less convenient service, which would further drive ticket prices up due to supply/demand.

 

Ha! That's a good one... I think cost would be passed on to labor (pilots) and as usual we will be glad to take it.

 

Well, if you take LGA as an example... there are times of the day when you can push off the gate and go straight to the runway and be first in line... there are other times during the day when you can push off the gate and be number 50+ in line.
With a slot system, they are going to have X number of departures per hour, and each airline can bid on the time of their choice. The overall goal being to shift the flights to be more evenly spread out throughout the day.
The big problem with LGA is the lack of gates. Frequently planes push off the gate, knowing they are going into a 2 hour plus taxi, because planes that have landed need the gates.
The idea of fixed slots sounds great, but isn't realy going to address the issue that there are certain times of the day that people want to fly, or need to fly to make their connection. Moving a 3PM departure to 12N sounds good on paper, but all it really will do is make passengers go to whatever airline DID get the 3PMish slot to go where they need to go. If there are not alot of flights at 12noon, it is because there is not alot of demand for it. No demand = empty airplane.

The slots would in theory ease congestion because you won't have 10 airlines all pushing off the gate for a 3PM departure... One will get 3pm, another 3:02, another 3:04, another 3:06 and so on... in theory it should work well..... for ATC. In a practical, real life situation... the planes will still be pushing off the gates to make room for inbound flights during peak times due to lack of gate space..... but what happens on the ramp isn't an ATC issue since the ramps are controlled be the airlines.

so, does anything get better.... not by much, except for the ATC folks, and the FAA and Port Authority will get to collect higher fees for prime time slots....

spray a pile of crap with perfume, and it's still a pile of crap.

 

You're a Marine, for God sakes. You're not supposed to understand technical stuff like "slots." If, by chance, you did need to understand them, The Marine Corps would have issued you some.

 

Absolutely! It sounds like SLOTS are for someone who can't push their way past those line. We are all taught that if something is in your way then just apply greater force until it breaks!

USMCFLYR

 

Unfortunately that doesn't quite work in the 121 world.

 

The Middle Seat Terminal : The Slot-Auction Saga Continues