Airline marketing normally controls the gate. They don't know or care about the fuel. Al ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerard M Foley" <gfoley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 10:49 PM Subject: Flow Control > 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/