Friday I was in a Southwest 737 that waited about half an hour at the gate in Columbus for clearance to start for Philadelphia. We made the flight in a couple of minutes over an hour, landing without delay. Returning Sunday night the plane left the gate and spent an hour on the taxiway, engines idling, moving half a dozen or more times, until we got to the head of the line and took off for our hour and a quarter flight to Columbus. Does it cost much fuel to have the engines turning over, revving up to move forward and so on for an hour, with a dozen or more planes in line? Couldn't the same excellent flow control that holds at the gate for a clear landing slot at the destination be used to hold at the gate until it is really time to get out to the runway at the originating airport? Gerry http://www.pbase.com/gfoley9999/ http://www.wilowud.net/ http://home.columbus.rr.com/gfoley http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/pollock/263/egypt/egypt.html http://foley.foleypages.net/~gerry/