Philadelphia Airtran question

sweetp267 · Aug 25, 2007

I am leaving PHL on Monday at 9:25 am and I have been tracking the performance of flight 622 out of PHL for the last few days. The flight originates in Boston and leaves around 7 am. It is supposed to arrive in PHL around 8:25 am. Flightstats.com showed that on the last few days it left BOS on time but on those days it showed that it arrived over an hour late or more in PHL.

What I want to know is what was going on in the air or on the ground that caused the plane to arrive so late when it left on time and the weather wasn't a factor. Today's flight (sat) was also late arriving but left on time.

I was wondering if anyone has experienced this flight either from BOS or PHL. It is just really bugging me that a flight can leave on time and be that late arriving with no apparent reason for delaying it. I know from experience that PHL is not the most reliable airport, but this is ridiculous.

Thanks for listening and for any info you have

Jon

mrmagicmph · Aug 25, 2007

sweetp267 said:
What I want to know is what was going on in the air or on the ground that caused the plane to arrive so late when it left on time and the weather wasn't a factor.

First of all, please understand that I am NOT defending this answer, just explaining it as I understand it. & before you wonder, yes, I agree, it's CRAZY.

A flight is considered to have left on time if it has pushed back from the gate at the time it is scheduled to do so (plus or minus I think something like 5 or 7 minutes, I don't remember exactly). HOWEVER, as a passenger, I wouldn't call pushing back from the gate & "parking" maybe 10 feet back from the jetway as having qualified as departing.

Many airports, especially the major ones, suffer from a severe overbooking by all of the airlines of flights at the "choice" departure times. Let us say that a given runway can have 30 arrivals & departures (total) per hour. Now, there may be 48 flights scheduled to depart in that hour and another 12 to arrive during that hour, making a total of 60 flights to "go" in the 60 minute period, but only having 30 slots to use. Therefore, many of them are going to be delayed in either departure or arrival, even if the weather is perfect.

Add to this that you're dealing with not one but TWO major airports (Logan & Philly) and you've just compounded the potential impact. So, at peak travel times, things are likely to get "regularly" fouled up.

Please understand, I'm none to thrilled with this either. In point of fact, in just over a month I'm due to fly Airtran's Flight 622 myself down there. However, I've realized that the most important part is that I'm going on vacation with my wife to the happiest place on earth to vacation :cloud9: