@Soly 's hitters at AA did an admirable job getting me to and from Pebble this past weekend. They handled a pop up severe weather situation well as we approached DFW, diverting us to TUL for a relatively painless refuel. Thankfully my layover was long enough to prevent impact to arrival time at my final destination.
What’s not cool is the taxi times to and from the runways at DFW. We spent ~25-30 minutes taxiing to the gate upon arrival, the AA captain did a good job of communicating the long “drive” to the gate. I think this was our commute from touch down to gate D17. We landed from the south on the runway furthest east:
On the next flight to my final, no communication at all. After they made the call to the FAs to prepare the cabin for departure, we taxied for 25 minutes. (yes i counted bc i was curious after the previous flight) People were very confused. These times included very little stopping.
TLDR - AA did a nice job. DFW has annoyingly long taxi times to and from runways.
I’ve had some insane taxi routes between gates and runways at JFK and ATL. Probably all the evidence we need that there’s a shortage of air traffic controllers.
A lot of this probably was due to the pop up storm that caused the diversion to begin with, typically you are landing on the same side as your terminal when possible.
Either way not enjoyable, but that’s typically not been an issue of mine!
So clearly DFW was on a north flow that day. When departing 35L, it was probably too warm to do an intersection departure (taking off from less than full length). ORD does this with 28R/10L to allow arrivals to sequence in behind the departures and keep the departure flow going. When it’s necessary to have arrivals from the outer runway cross the departure runway, they will usually have 3-4 arrivals park on various crossing taxiways, stop the departures for a minute and have those arrivals cross at the same time. It looks like your flight was selected to be in a more northly crossing taxiway. As for crossing the north bridge, I think DFW has taxiway preferred directions depending on if they are in north or south flow, and that probably made it easier for ATC to sequence you in for your gate.
Really should be a 10-15 minute process, but AA pilots are known for taking their sweet time around DFW, it’s an industry joke.
Same with ORD recently. My last 4 landings into ORD have been at 9L (the runway at the top), then we take a 20 min tour around the maintenance facility, training areas, and construction. Just like:
def appreciate the flow logic. It just felt excessively long this time. Haven’t had issues like that in the past at DFW. Wouldn’t have even brought it up if it didn’t happen on all 4 legs to and from from LIT-DFW-MRY. I do realize that the storm likely played a role in yesterday’s events
The big difference between ORD and DFW is intersection departures. So when you land on 09L, you’re getting to cross 09C and 09R near the full length threshold. Departures are being sent off 09C at intersection FF, which is about 3,000 ft shorter, but still plenty long enough for most flights. This means arrivals don’t have to wait on departures to cross the inner runways, they can just keep moving. And departures can flow as they are ready to roll. So while it’s a long distance, you don’t have to stop, and that reduces the impression that you’re being delayed by ATC.
JFK has insufficient taxiways for the amount of traffic is has. Anything less than optimum conditties and taxi times can add up real fast. EWR and LGA have similar problems…congestion in the air and on the ground.
well. i just learned of the horror that is AA and my flight isn’t for another couple months.
I booked a basic economy ticket and stupidly misinterpreted the refund rules/change rules. the same flight is now a bit cheaper than when I booked it and there is also an earlier return option after connecting. but, since I booked basic economy (I typically fly SW, hence my lack of AA knowledge), I’m SOL and have to fly on the exact flights I booked, no option to cancel for a flight credit to use for something else or anything.
Does anyone have any recommendations of how I can get myself out of the stupidity pickle I’ve put myself in. thanks.
edit: i’ve learned via googling that I’m not the first dum dum to do this and have to live with what I have. thank you everyone for your time
Have only flown out and in Emirates J so was a great experience. They have a fast track you can buy for customs which may be worth it depending on your flight time. There’s also plenty of duty free shopping post customs if you’re interested in that.
We boarded direct from the lounge so cannot say too much about the rest of the airport experience but in my experience it was easy to navigate and less hectic than some other large, European airports (FRA, LHR, etc.)
Waze took me too deep into the city of Siena, Italy and I ended up getting popped for “entering a limited traffic zone without authorisation.”
Avis dimed me out, charged me $45 for the hassle of snitching, and let me know I would likely be receiving a traffic ticket at some point in the future.
It took a year after I broke the law for them to send me a bill for €98.40. I don’t know why I paid but I did.
I’d say it can definitely speed up the customs process, especially depending on the time of day you fly out. Airport was quite when we left so it is tough to say if it is worth it or not, but I think it was only like $10 per person so not terribly expensive if you do not end up using it.
