It would be interesting to know at the busier peak times of each day (particularly Mondays, Fridays morning and evening and Sunday afternoons/ early evening) what the average number of minutes is that aircraft spend in a holding pattern, and secondly for how long they are asked by ATC to slow down when approaching their destination airport.
Of the three largest east coast airports, BNE may well be the worst affected with its single runway operations, followed by SYD and then MEL. I realise weather conditions will never be identical at all three, though it's possible for all to have benign flying conditions.
For more regular business flyers than me, the east coast (or sometimes ex west coast) speech from a flight crew member about how 'air traffic control has just slowed us down, so we now expect to arrive in .... at .... ' must be almost as routine as bad airline coffee.
This must waste a lot of fuel and be a headache to airline bean counters.
Forgive the lengthy and slightly OT post but as a current ATC here in Aus, I thought I'd take the opportunity to provide a little insight for those whom are interested.
These continual delays are also a headache for ATC as well - believe me. Generally speaking, into SYD & BNE, aircrew are instructed by ATC to begin slowing down from about 150-200NM from destination. This is dependent on the length of delay and traffic disposition at the time. Until that point they are not "locked in" to the sequence (of arriving aircraft) and any slowdown will mean they will begin moving back a couple of slots in the sequence (e.g. you were No. 3 but you become No. 5). This is mainly due to the way our sequencing/flow system (named MAESTRO) operates but it also allows the sequence to be efficient in regards to slotting in aircraft that depart out of ports close to destination (eg. YWLM for SYD or YSCB for SYD) as well as aircraft requiring priority for whatever reason (usually Air Ambulance/Flying Doctor MEDEVAC flights)
Actually I don't hear it all that often (and I fly weekly). Generally if the weather is bad in one location, you know there will be a delay somewhere. I know sometimes in the morning they will hold the flight on the ground, but i haven't had that for some time now.
In the past year or so airborne holding for SYD and, to a lesser extent, BNE has been reduced by the introduction of a ground delay program called METRON. So now, all things running smoothly, runway demand for a major aerodrome such as SYD or BNE is constantly monitored and updated throughout the day and when it is projected that demand outstrips capacity, aircraft will be given a delay on the ground (at the gate - usually) at their departure point. Thus, it saves them spinning around o/head the Gold Coast burning fuel. Of course, the system has its flaws and limitations (which, for brevity's sake I won't discuss) and it can only reduce delays by so much because at the end of the day the problem is, and has been for many years, real estate... i.e. too many planes and not enough runways. In the meantime, we are looking at numerous other options to try and make the use of airspace and aerodromes as absolutely efficient as possible. You will all appreciate though that these things take time - any change to procedures/airspace design etc. in the ATC world have to be thoroughly planned for to ensure that, above all else, the safety of aircraft (and by extension you, as passengers on those birds) is not jeopardised in any manner.
From an ATC perspective we are frustrated at the situation just like pilots are, just like airlines ops are and just like you, the flying public are. Holding increases our workload dramatically (not to mention the complexity is exponentially higher!) and we want to avoid having that occur as much as anyone else I can absolutely assure you. In the case of SYD, holding sometimes kicks in because of the need for SYD to operate on runway configurations that are much less efficient (i.e. less movements per hour) due to "noise sharing" requirements. I cannot describe how frustrating it is to have to delay aircraft, costing time and money, because of political reasons - it's really hard to swallow.
Anyway, apologies for the thread drift and I hope this makes the mud ever slightly more clearer from the ATC perspective.
Cheers.
Will have to say Hi. Sadly we are in 66D and E
