New nominee: The DL guy the other night landing on 28L at SFO who was advised by Tower while on final approach to "keep it rolling through the intersection, I've got two departures on the 1s."

(For those who are unfamiliar, 1L/R intersect with 28L/R at SFO. The 1s are typically used for departures while crossing traffic lands on the 28s. Anyone who's been to SFO before will realize that common courtesy dictates you let the airplane roll through the runway intersection, even if your gate might be in Terminals 1 or 2, necessitating a bit of a back-taxi on A or B in order to get to your gate. If you slowly roll through the intersection, you block departing traffic on both 1L and 1R, and usually both runways are in heavy use by departures.)

Anyhow, said DL pilot ground to a halt right in the middle of the 1L/ 28L intersection. He obviously wanted the shortest route to his gate, and the heck with anyone else. The exchange went like this:

Tower: "DL ___, I said keep it moving! You're blocking two departures!"

DL: "Well, we're going to the 50 gates right here." (He didn't want to add another couple hundred feet to his taxi.)

Tower: "I realize that sir but I told you to keep it rolling!"

DL: (Still immobile on the runway): "OK, stand by...what taxiway did you want us to exit on?"

Tower: "I don't care sir, just get off the runway and contact Ground on point eight...ahh, it's too late now. Skywest ___ and Virgin ___, sorry, gonna have to get you out after the next pair of arrivals. DL____, next time you land here, keep it rolling like I told you."

DL: "Ahhh... roger that." Finally he found the thrust levers and exited the intersection.

We sat there on 1L watching this in disbelief. I've never seen a 121 crew just stop smack in the middle of an active runway intersection like that. But I bet they had spiffy hats.

Must have had an itchy mustache irritating him.

When it's busy, as a controller I always want to know when I was blocked so I can immediately re-transmit instead of wasting time waiting for a readback that will never come. When it's busy we need the regular rhythm of instruction/readback/instruction/readback to keep things moving. When we give "instruction" and get a readback of "blocked" we go back to "instruction" and the flow keeps going. If we give "instruction" and hear silence, now the rhythm is messed up and we have to decide to go against the flow with another instruction (when we're expecting a readback), that is likely to get blocked again if the pilot was just delayed in their response.

I've never heard other controllers rant about "blocked" either, although I've only worked in Center where about 95% of the pilots we talk to are professionals who can tell when it's the controller being blocked and not two aircraft blocking each other (when "blocked" wouldn't be appropriate). Maybe it's different in the approach and tower environment though.

Thanks for the feedback. I figured you'd like to know when you were blocked, I can also understand that saying "blocked" ties up a busy frequency even more. I think the real frustration with the OP was, the obnoxious child stretching out the transmission...."blllooooooocccccckkkkkeeeddd". That would be annoying during a red eye. When a freq was saturated, it would be brutal.

Can't really blame the "Double Breasted Admirals", unless there is a satement regarding minimum time on the runway. At many airports overseas, preferred exits are stated on the 10-9 A charts such as Sydney, and Auckland, for example. LDRs are consulted in our QRHs, and ATC IS advised accordingly, i.e. the Director, Final controller, or Tower. Spacing for departures and arrivals are made accordingly. But that's overseas and not in the U.S.

When told by ATC to 'expedite across the 1s,' at an airport where anyone who's been there more than once can tell you that the customary procedure is to roll past the intersection before exiting the runway, I find it hard to believe that anyone would grind to a halt ON THE INTERSECTING RUNWAY. But the double-breasted admiral that night certainly did.

Yawn. Filler.

you seem upset over something extremely trivial.

If you aren't familiar and weren't told in advance to expect it, it's not instantly obviously where the 1's are...that intersection area is a mess. To expedite through you have to land and then roll without brakes or TR's, not something that's prudent if you don't know exactly what you're doing. I have trouble getting new FO's to do it even with a briefing, everybody wants get their stop on early.

Always better to stop too soon than too late...

Maybe it was his first time and they were unfamiliar. Plus it was at night, so...