acl65pilot

It is not the the snow that is the issue, it is the ability of the airport to 1) Clear it and 2) provide deice pads for DAL. We have four, therefore we cannot get our jets out in a timely manner. About a half a decade ago they found glycol in the Surround Cities water supply. This prompted use of the pads that we now utilize. Because of this, and the decision to do these deice pads sans redoing the airport drainage system, we not have a total mess when it comes to snow removal.

Add to this the DOT-3 rule and it is the making of a total disaster. Yes, the crew staffing arm should be able to effectively deal with the compounding issue and yes, that needs to be addressed, but the root cause of the problem is the inability to get jets clear of adhering precip in a timely manner. Deal with this, and many of the other issues do not compound on themselves creating the situation we have had twice in the last month.

So, find more areas in which to deice our jets that have the correct drainage system. This will allow us to move more metal. Three of the five runways remained open and plowed through this entire event. Taxiways not so much, but airplanes could take off if they could get clean.

80ktsClamp

Half a decade ago is not the root of the problem. Delta has NEVER been able to run a winter op out of ATL, with or without being restricted to ramp 6 for deice.

Going2Baja

I might be living under a rock but thought I'd re-post the link to iCrew max for those who don't know about it. It also has a link for iCrew mobile for Android users. One more reason to go Android and not iPhone.

iCrewMax

Baja.

johnso29

True, but if you have an iPhone you can still use icrew max to download an .ics file to your desktop, then import that to your google calendar, & sync your iPhone calendar to your google calendar. The end result is all of your rotation info ends up right on your phone.

A lot more work? Probably. But it'll work until the contract is up.

acl65pilot

Yes, there have always been issues but never to this magnitude. I have flown in and out of ATL for 15+ years and it is as worse as it has ever been . Add the inability to effectively deice your jets added with the DOT rule, and you end up canceling flight that effect 90% of the rotations. It is a recipe for disaster.

I would like to see how bad this would have been if we have double or triple the deice pads. In years past (pre deice pads) we would have snow events and have lengthy taxi times and deicing on the ramps, but never this sort of mess.

Of course AAI canceled all of their ops on Monday and most of Tuesday as well. I know when I took off on Tuesday we were the only jet moving on the entire airport. Kind of crazy. Runways were totally clear, but nothing was moving. Deice took about 15 mins and we were off the ground in no time.

80ktsClamp

Yep, and you were rolling out in an almost super premium widebody going to NRT. They make way for the big dogs!

Even though we were restricted to ramp 6, and had we had several more deice pads available... another example of poor planning reared it's ugly head. We ran out of deice fluid!! Truly pi$$ poor performance requires truly pi$$ poor planning.

acl65pilot

I heard they did run out, but never had that confirmed.

I do not know what other pads we could use. They have to be approved and have the correct draining and storage for the runoff. I know AMR deices at the gate on Ramp one, but have never gone over to ask how they can do that and why we can't.

I remember the press when they found the deice fluid in the water supply. It changed the way we deice our jets in ATL. It effectively created a situation where we could not run half of the operation. Add the DOT-3 rule and any time we get snow or any other precip that requires a deice, the operation is going to get thinned out because of it.


Yes, we need to find a way to do better. Not arguing that. Just giving the background to why we have those pads on Ramp six.

acl65pilot

Oh 80, it would not have mattered that the jet was a WB or not. We and another 767 were the only jets moving on the entire airport.

That is what happens when they cancel flights because crews time out, or have to return for a DOT-3 issue. It plays havoc on the already thinned out operation.

Maddoggin

Thanks for the link. Got everything running but can't seem to get the 4 digit code that you need to put into the app to see your schedule. I have icrewmax installed on my laptop and hit download under schedule but don't see a 4 digit code. Only downloads an excel sheet with my schedule on it. You know how/where to get the code?

Figured it out. You have to go under icrewmax option on your computer and specify that you want to download it to a mobile device. No problems now. Pretty cool app!

Rudder

does icrewmax work equally well with the Mac?