This kind of stuff is exactly what I was talking about. Ksatflyer simply asked a question about taxi speeds and was seeking info to perhaps help him/her do their job better. As I suspected the SWA "haters" are trying to vent their frustrations. As evidenced by the people claiming they were hit/almost hit by SWA, afraid to taxi faster than 20 kts.(), and as I said before "run over by a reindeer." For Captain Bligh - please state time/date of incident so that I might find some credibility in your post. Otherwise.........

Fact is American has a different system and it doesn't always require (for example) that they rush to their hub only to wait for a gate and increase their ground time. Just different, not superior/inferior. I'll let them address any "slow" down issues. SWA has a linear flow generally, which means a few minutes saved here and there could help. Complying with the Boeing speeds has been deemed to be safe in certain weather conditions. As I said if you have a problem with our taxi speeds (or think we are "blowing them off"), please bring it up with the appropriate authorities. Otherwise I might suspect motives similar to the Pan Am captain who blamed SWA for career "difficulties."


The Oscar

 

You are barking up the wrong tree. APA safety commitee is as good as they come, and they ALWAYS suggest we slow down so as to accomplish all those tasks in a SAFE manner.

It's not about comm switches on the audio panels, or talking when you're driving. It's about dealing with a massive before T/O checklist that is not very evenly split amongst the two crewmembers. And as long as it's like that, we will taxi slower than most in order to not screw it up. AA pilots have ALWAYS taxied slower than most due to this phenomenon.

APA is always on top of stuff like this. Like I said, if you get stuck behind us, we will gladly stop and give way. But don't jump on here trying to "optimize" our way of doing things. That's just the AA way, and frankly, we have plenty of ASAPs that show a pretty high runway incursion rate a few years ago when some guys tried doing too much too quickly.

Safety comes first. If it means a slower taxi, so be it.

 

You brought up the safety issue with regard to YOUR airline's pilots taxi speed.

"Safety comes first...." On this point we agree.

 

That's because SAFETY is one of the main reasons we taxi slow, due to our abnormally long checklist and somewhat eccentric split of duties. or have you not been reading what I've been writing?

 

I'm not AA. We rarely do flaps 30 landings, soI've done no more than 3 flaps 30 landings this year. With the technique I talked about, getting flaps 30 and being on speed at target is easier than a flaps 25 landing since there's actually a bit of drag on the wing.

Do you have the RR engines? We have pratts, and I always thought they had a higher idle and less drag than the RR...maybe I'm wrong.

 

You have not been paying attention to what I've been saying. AA only taxis slow when there are contract negotiations ongoing. Once the negotiations are over, it's normal taxi.

Clear enough. Once your negotiations are finished you will see what I'm talking about.

 

REALLY? Do tell us AA pilots more! Fascinating. MmHuh...yep, Wow!
Here's a "readback" for you...You have no idea what you're talking about.

Happy Holidays
AA 757/767 FO for a long time.

 

I've seen many of your "negotiations" including your infamous B-scale.

The act is always the same.

It's gameday! I'm outta here!

 

Whatever you want to believe, is fine by me... I've been here 10 years and we have never varied our taxi speed.... I distinctly remember my OAL friends ripping on me as a newhire in 2000 about our taxi speeds, I asked my next crew about it and the response I got was "because we have way too much to do on the taxi out."

We were not in contract negotiations in 2000.

That said, I've noticed we tend to taxi normally after landing to the gate. Case in point, our after landing checklists are silent and done by the F/O.

Happy holidays.
73

 

Landing with anything less than flaps 30 at AA is usually reserved for emergencies or strong winds... I wasn't aware other airlines landed with less.

AA does have the RRs. Couple of my friends who flew the TWA birds (Pratts) did say they decelerate quicker than ours, probably due to the bigger engine cowling (RRs are much more streamlined.) Not sure about the idle speeds.

Also, not sure if your (DL) 757s all have winglets.... all of ours are done, and believe you me when I say the sucker doesn't slow down.