Re: Flow Control

[Allan9 <exatc@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Airline marketing normally controls the gate.  They don't know or care about 
the fuel.
Al

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gerard M Foley" <gfoley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 10:49 PM
Subject: Flow Control


> Friday I was in a Southwest 737 that waited about half an hour at the gate 
> in Columbus for clearance to start for Philadelphia.  We made the flight 
> in a couple of minutes over an hour, landing without delay.
>
> Returning Sunday night the plane left the gate and spent an hour on the 
> taxiway, engines idling, moving half a dozen or more times, until we got 
> to the head of the line and took off for our hour and a quarter flight to 
> Columbus.
>
> Does it cost much fuel to have the engines turning over, revving up to 
> move forward and so on for an hour, with a dozen or more planes in line? 
> Couldn't the same excellent flow control that holds at the gate for a 
> clear landing slot at the destination be used to hold at the gate until it 
> is really time to get out to the runway at the originating airport?
>
> Gerry
> http://www.pbase.com/gfoley9999/
> http://www.wilowud.net/
> http://home.columbus.rr.com/gfoley
> http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/pollock/263/egypt/egypt.html
> http://foley.foleypages.net/~gerry/