Dee: Sorry about your troubles in PHL and PIT. As a pilot here, and a former pilot for US Airways based in PHL, I can tell you that the amount of traffic in and out of PHL is awful. PHL is directly under the same airspace as La Guardia, JFK and Newark. All these are very large traffic airports all controlled by the same Air Traffic Control Center (New York Center). Because of the amount of flights that try to arrive and land at 4 airports, the airspace becomes congested and the air traffic control folks issue delays in order to space out traffic. Even on the ground in PHL is a nightmare. My personal record for my career in PHL while with US Airways was numner 76 for departure. It tooks over 4 hours to get to the end of the runway.
Again, I'm sorry for the delays and we certainly do try to take short cuts, get in early so we can push early and other things, but the airspace overhead is certainly not very accomodating to such requests when asked.
I wish I had a solution for you, but we are at their mercy as well as the other airlines.
Hope to see you again soon.
Mike
... View more
