On Sep 19, 9:35 am, Andrew Gideon wrote:
On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:30:58 +0000, John Kulp wrote:
Why? Why didn't we take the path I saw? *That* makes me wonder about
airspace control issues, but I'm just guessing that that might have been
the cause. It could have been a myriad of other issues as well.

You ignoring all the other traffic that the airport was handling at the
same time which most likely made your flight do what it did. You can't
just do as you did and assume that space is available for your aircraft.

Why not? There is a lot of sky, even in only one direction. A single
airway at a single altitude can accommodate three new aircraft every
minute at 200 Kts. Admittedly, this is a gross simplification of time
and separation, but it's also only a single airway at a single altitude.

The airport itself was launching some traffic, but not much. And, at
least at the start of this wait (while the weather was pretty far away),
local weather wasn't an issue. This did change later, however.

What other limit(s) might be at issue? That's what I wonder.

First of all your pilots would have had to request it. They would
have had to file the appropriate flight plans (which admittedly
they can probably amend via the radio as they sat). But
furthermore, they would have to figure out the relative fuel
burn for your alternate itinerary and the one they originally
intended. Large route changes cause excess fuel use.
They can sit and idle on the taxiway a long time before
they burn up that kind of fuel.