Ask the pilot

Anatomy of a delay: It's payback time as the pilot endures a 24-hour snowstorm saga.

By Patrick Smith

Read more: Technology & Business, Flying, Business, P. Smith, Ask the Pilot

March 23, 2007 | Last month, after a storm socked in Kennedy airport, marooning thousands of fliers on ice-encrusted jets, I spent two columns analyzing the nuts and bolts of weather delays. I emphasized the rarity of large-scale weather fiascoes, while pointing out potential downsides of the so-called passenger bill of rights now being championed by travelers' advocates and politicians. Readers were, let's just say, less than satisfied, calling me everything from an asshole to an airline apologist. I was accused of being aloof, out of touch, and snidely unsympathetic to the miseries faced by stranded passengers.

Admittedly, I was writing from the comfortable, if not exactly luxurious, confines of my apartment. And one of the things I chose not to mention -- first, because nobody would have believed me, and second, because I'd have been burned in effigy for saying it -- is that in all my years of commercial flying, whether as a passenger or a crew member, on a domestic or an international flight, I had never once experienced a delay lasting more than about three hours.

I can't say for certain if I jinxed myself, or if perhaps one of my detractors put a hex on me. Whatever the case, it didn't take long for my number to come up. Two weeks to be exact. Consider yourself avenged.

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It's the morning of March 16, and a late winter storm is headed for the northeastern United States. Airports from Maryland to Maine are bracing for a wallop. At slightly past noon, I'm settling into the cockpit jump seat of a Boeing 757, for what is planned to be a two-hour and 20-minute trip to Boston's Logan International Airport. The flight is overbooked, so I'll be riding up front. Reports from home say the snow is just starting. If we leave on schedule, we should beat the worst of it.

So far so good: The jet pushes back only a minute or two late, and most of its 190 occupants -- 183 passengers, two pilots, four flight attendants and me -- are upbeat and grateful. Back inside the concourse, the departure screens are spattered with red cancellations for later in the day. Philadelphia, LaGuardia, Newark, Providence, Boston -- everything northbound has been scratched in advance. Ours will be one of the last flights out.

As the plane rolls backward and the first officer prepares to start engines, the captain is riffling through the dispatch release and flight plan. "I just don't understand it," he says, scrutinizing a long furl of dot-matrix printout. "Why do they want us to leave with only a half-hour of holding fuel?" This is the first premonition of trouble.

Per regulation, a domestic flight must carry at least enough fuel, based on computer-calculated burn estimates, to arrive at its destination, then proceed to the most distant of any required alternate airport, plus maintain a 45-minute cushion. Holding or contingency fuel, if any, is added above and beyond that total. Today, the paperwork shows our alternate as Bangor, Maine. (Alternate airports are chosen based on weather criteria -- ceilings and visibilities must remain above forecast minimums within a certain window of time.) Beyond what it takes to reach Boston or Bangor and our 45-minute cushion, we'll have only enough kerosene for a half-hour of circling before a diversion becomes mandatory. That might sound like plenty of slack, but Logan is notorious for arrival delays even in good weather.

The captain is unsure why the dispatchers, who are responsible for most of the preflight planning and the en route oversight of all flights, have set things up this way. (Dispatchers, like pilots, are FAA-licensed and intimately familiar with both the arcana of fuel planning and the realities of day-to-day operations.) Surely they realize what's at stake. The plane is nowhere close to its maximum gross weight for the existing conditions; there's plenty of room for more gas. Generally, airlines are reluctant to lug around excess fuel because it costs more to do so. At times like this, however, the price of an unscheduled stop could easily outweigh the benefits of hauling a lighter load.

On the other hand, should an airport close for an extended length of time, it's sometimes better to head elsewhere and wait things out on the ground, rather than fly interminable circles overhead while the runways and taxiways are plowed. It's partly a judgment call and partly a roll of the dice.

The captain has the final say. Though somewhat perplexed, after consulting with the first officer he has opted to accept the numbers and depart. At this point, calling for supplemental fuel would keep us at the gate for several more minutes. With worsening conditions up north, it's better to press on as soon as possible. Judging from the forecasts and our ETA, delays should be brief.

Next page: The real problems begin during descent, somewhere around Providence, R.I.