SWA at Philadelphia

Almost half the afternoons I look at
http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/usmap.jsp I see long taxi delays at
Philadelphia. Yet Southwest chose to enter the market. How do they
prevent these delays from disrupting their tight schedules elsewhere
in their system? Was attacking USAir at a major base worth these
problems?

Robert J Carpenter wrote:

Almost half the afternoons I look at
http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/usmap.jsp I see long taxi delays at
Philadelphia. Yet Southwest chose to enter the market. How do they
prevent these delays from disrupting their tight schedules elsewhere
in their system? Was attacking USAir at a major base worth these
problems?


If the delays were that bad, WN wouldn't be there.
In looking at today, the only delays listed for Phildaelphia were due to
SWAP (Severe Weather)

A realistic approach to scheduling which allows for realistic taxi times
can result in no normal schedule delays. If it normally takes 2 1/2
hours gate to gate from ABC to XYZ at 8:00 AM, put that in the schedule
not 2 hours because that's what can be done at 9:00 PM.

-Jack Handy, Lowered Expectations

"Greg Johnson" wrote in message
...
A realistic approach to scheduling which allows for realistic taxi
times
can result in no normal schedule delays.

I see that frequently done, especially on transatlantic routes ...
flights leaving 45 minutes late and arriving almost an hour early.
Look at IAD to LHR, for example. IAD has notoriously long takeoff
queues around the time of departures to Europe - but not quite
always.. I've sat in a take-off queue for an hour after leaving the
gate. That won't show up as a gate hold.

With PHL, the gate hold delay varies from zero to over 2 hours from
day to day.