Doug Cameron: I've seen a couple of times a pilot come back through, through the cabin to make people a little bit wary. What are they, what are they looking at?
Geoff Murray: Well, usually when I'm going back there, because the fluid is strong, I will tell the passengers, Hey, that fluid's really strong. I'm just back here to make sure the wing is still attached. You know, so I'm back there like checking some bolts. I'm obviously kidding.

Narrator: Welcome to the KnowEntry podcast presented by no delay.

Doug Cameron: Fine. Welcome to the KnowEntry Podcast, where we take you behind the cockpit door, hopefully to provide expertise you wouldn't find anywhere else to make your travel experience just a little bit easier. In Chicago today, it's minus 16 with the windchill.
My car sorted. I did the anti freeze at the weekend, but we know that it's going to affect all mechanical instruments, and that includes something complex like a plane. So to lead us through, we've got Noam Alon. and Geoff Murray, two experienced pilots who've also worked across the airline industry in their long careers.
Let's start. Why does it matter when it's cold for a plane? What doesn't a plane like about the cold? I know what my car doesn't like. What about planes? No.

Noam Alon: Well, I mean, basically, beyond the similar things that you talked about with your car, so engines need time to warm up and mechanical things like the hydraulics need time to warm up as well. Beyond that, the basics of cold weather operation, especially when there's any kind of precipitation, snow, ice, something like that, is the airplane has to be what we call, In other words, it needs to be clear of any adhering frozen precipitation, snow or ice. So a big part of de icing, what people are familiar with, if they've flown in the winter time is getting that airplane clean. So that's the first part is getting it on clean on the ground. And then in the air, it's making sure that the airplane stays clear of adhering ice. And there's all sorts of systems on the aircraft that help keep the airplane clean so that wind can generate lift and the airplane can perform the way it's designed.

Geoff Murray: And that that's that is the big deal. The big deal is to fly, you got to have a wing. The wing can't have any stuff on it. So when you get out to the airport in the winter and you see that it snowed, it's like we got to get the snow off the wing. And that is part of literally D icing. You could also call it D snowing.
You're you just got to get all the snow, all the contamination, you All that stuff that could destroy the ability of the aircraft to generate lift and fly, we gotta get it off the airplane. So just like Noam said, the concept we use, really simple, is clean aircraft, and it means the aircraft doesn't have any contamination, no snow, ice, freezing ice pellets or anything on it before we take off. Pretty, fairly simple.

Doug Cameron: So, Noam, I suspect many passengers have experienced a bit of ground de icing. It sounds a little like you're going through a car wash sometimes. Maybe you could, you could let us know both what you might expect when a plane's being de iced on the ground, and also, what can also feed into delays sometimes, what can, what takes time?
How long does it take? I know how long it takes to go through a car wash. How long does it take to de ice a plane?

Noam Alon: It's a function of a couple of things, but for the most part, it's really, A process of taking any snow or ice that's on the airplane and removing that and there's a specific fluid that we use. It's a kind of an amberish color. It's applied hot to the airplane and it removes anything that's On the airplane, and then if there's no current precipitation, that's where it stops. All you need is an airplane to be clean. But if it's still snowing, then we apply a second type of chemical. We call it type 4 fluid, and it's green in color.
And that's applied cold, and what that does is it stays on those moving surfaces, like the wing, the tail, and all the flying portions of the wing and tail. To make sure that nothing can stick if it's still snowing and then there's a whole process that takes about 15 to 20 minutes I would say if the de icing truck is available right away And if you're the first airplane that is in queue to get de iced so about 15 or 20 minutes pretty quick But anyway, that's the process kind of like a car wash.

Geoff Murray: I think that's a good one. How do you know when you're finished? Good, good question Doug. So, we're communicating with the folks who are doing the actual de icing, the folks who are out on the de icing truck, they're telling us where they are on the aircraft, they're telling us, hey, we finished the type one, which just like Noam talked about is basically clearing the airplane. And that's just like Noam said, it's a warm fluid. So if you're sitting in the back of an airplane, you're watching an aircraft get de iced and you see steam coming off of it. You know, that's the type one fluid and what they're doing is clearing the airplane and they'll tell you when they're done with that.
Then they'll say we are starting the type four and the type four is the fluid just like Noam talked about It has a really interesting chemical Property to it that basically melts ice and snow for a certain period of time when that ice or snow touches the fluid. So the whole idea is they're spraying this green fluid.
And in the winter you've been O'Hare, Minneapolis, Detroit, you see planes taxiing around and it looks like they have green wings. And that means that that type four fluid has been applied to it. has been applied to the wings. So the guys doing the de icing or the women doing the de icing, they're telling us what they're doing, they're telling us where they are, and the most important thing they tell us is when they started and when they stopped.
So we started applying type 4 at 15 minutes after the hour, we finished the type 4 at 25 minutes after the hour, and then to get into some complexities that we'll talk about in another podcast, that chemical property. gives us the ability to taxi around the airplane to get down to the end of the runway to ensure that ice and snow won't continue to accumulate on the airframe.
So the quick answer to your question is we're in radio communication with the team and they tell us when they're done. Noam, do you ever have to do it twice if

Noam Alon: it keeps snowing? That can happen. So just like Geoff is saying, the chemicals have properties that they can handle a certain amount of precipitation, amount of snow.
And at some point they get saturated and then their property of keeping the wing clean ends. And so we have tables or we have now with technology, we've actually got an app that takes all the information into account and tells us the fluid will last, let's say 45 minutes or an hour. If we're taxing around beyond an hour, then we either have to check that the fluid is still maintaining its, its viscosity, or if it's lost it, then we have to go back.
And that's obviously a very frustrating element if you're looking from a delay perspective, because you think you're going to get to take off and be airborne and then you have to go back and get back in queue, that can be very frustrating, but we're always going to take safety as the first priority.
And if that's what we have to do, that's what we have to do.

Doug Cameron: Geoff, every driver might have their own scrape or every plane can have its own. de icing facility. So who decides and how is it decided who gets de iced first and where your, where your place in the line is?

Geoff Murray: So that's, that's actually a bit of a dance.
And in, at most airports, for example, in the morning, if there was precipitation overnight, the, the airport, the airline will actually go to every aircraft CNA to gate. And this just happened to me the other day because there's, there's some interesting elements associated with de icing fluid. It's really slippery.
So if you're a bozo pilot outside doing your pre flight, make sure you're wearing good shoes with a good heel so that you don't slip and fall. But they will go around the airport in the morning and they will spray every single airplane. And then, and typically with type one, right, typically with type one, exactly.
Noam with the type one, all they're doing is clearing the airplane. But then it is, as I'm sure Noam can attest to, it's a bit of a dance. Like we're all trying to, Hey, get everybody on board. Let's get the before start checklist done. Let's get the motors going so we can be first in line, but there's not like a.
Like a chess master up there who's saying, Hey, flight number one, two, three, you wait for this guy. It's a very, what's the word I want to use? Very, like, equitable system. I kind of, who, who makes the first radio call? There's no first call. Right. No, they, they, they spray Noam, Noam's airplane first.

Noam Alon: The only thing I want to add though and this is important, in addition to good shoes when you're doing the walk around is you got to be careful of a drip when you're looking up at the wing and a drip of that type I gets in your eye, it really burns. Yeah. And so, yeah, good, good shoes and a pair of goggles.
Yep, exactly.

Doug Cameron: Yep. Well, let's get the image of Geoff dancing in heels out of our minds here. I think I've seen a couple of times a pilot come back through the cabin. It can make people a little bit wary. What are they looking at? So literally, what guys are you looking at? Usually

Geoff Murray: when I'm going back there, because the fluid is strong, I will tell the passengers, hey, that fluid's really strong.
I'm just back here to make sure the wing is still attached. You know, so I'm back there like checking some bolts. I'm obviously kidding. We are going back. And it's a great question, Doug, and it doesn't happen all the time, by the way. As Noam mentioned earlier, there's this thing called the holdover time.
The holdover time says, under this precipitation type for this long, you got 30 or 40 minutes. But if we're, if we're close to the boundary of that, One of us, generally the first officer, which I'm a first officer, we'll go back, we'll make a PA, hey, we're coming back to the cabin, we'll go to the exit row, we'll look out the window, and what we're looking at is to make sure we don't see any contamination, snow or ice or anything, on any of the wing, period.
And then we use the wing, we'll go look at both wings, and if the wings are clear, the assumption, and it's a very good assumption because of the way they apply the fluid, is the tail will also be clear.

Doug Cameron: And it doesn't matter if you see the fluid, if it's blue fluid or whatever color it is on the wing, that's fine, as long as it's not a foot of snow.
Geoff Murray: Well, we, in my case, I will want to see that green fluid, and I want to make sure the green fluid is still adhering to the aircraft. Oh, it's sticking there. Right, I think it's
Noam Alon: really important to know, for all the viewers of this, We're making a decision in the cockpit whether we need to come back based on a lot of information.
Just because a pilot doesn't come back doesn't mean there's a problem. And you can trust that they're, the pilots are aware of what's happening. But anyway, yeah, that's an important piece.

Doug Cameron: Yeah, keep up the process. Okay, so it's very visible what happens on the ground. What about in the air? You know, aircraft have anti icing systems.
Firstly, can passengers, if it's clear, they actually see any of that? And secondly, how do you sort of monitor it from the cockpit and know that the anti icing systems are operating? And what are they actually doing? Noam, if you want to carry on there.

Noam Alon: Sure. I mean, for the most part, once the airplane is airborne, the only place that precipitation would stick is to the leading edges of the aircraft.
So like the leading edge of the wing. the leading edge of the tail, the horizontal stabilizer, things like that. And so we've got heated surfaces. So we basically take a little bit of hot air off of the engine and we circulate that along what you'll see from the wing is like the silver part of the wing.
So that's the heated part. For the most part, we do that as a preventative. In some cases, in some aircraft, it could be a little bit different where you let it build up. And then you turn on the, the heat and you'll actually as a passenger, if you see it building up and then you see a break off, what the pilots have done is they've turned on the heat, inflated what are called boots and you'll see a crack off and disappear.
So that's actually the system working as intended. And then for the engines, you're probably not going to see that because we turn the heat on generally pretty. And we anticipate it so we don't even let it build because we don't want anything getting in the in the engine. Now, it does vary a little bit by aircraft.
Geoff, I don't know if it's different on your airplane.

Geoff Murray: No, it's similar. I mean, on the, for example, the 787 does have a slightly different program for the anti icing in the plane that Noam and I fly the Embraer 175, Noam flies the 737, both of those airplanes have have literally pipes, small pipes coming off the engine that are routed through the leading edges of the wings and they they have small holes in them and they blow hot air on the leading edge of the wings and that makes the leading edge of the wings warm So it doesn't accumulate ice, but on a handful of aircraft, like the 787, it's electric, like very much like electric baseboard heat in your house.

Doug Cameron: So there's electric, it's or the heated rear window of your plane and your car, rather.

Geoff Murray: Exactly. Exactly. So it's, it's electrically generated. heat that is heating up the leading edges of the wings, the engine cowlings, the tail and that kind of thing. So, slightly different systems.
The electric system is lighter. It doesn't rob the engine of power. So there's a whole set of advantages to it, which is why Boeing elected to use it on the 787. That's a topic for another conversation because that's a whole another conversation.

Geoff Murray: Yeah. So to finish our flight, you've landed, is there any part of the de icing process which happens between landing and you getting to the gate?

Geoff Murray: I would say there isn't, but there is an important element to that, and the element is once we land, it's the anti icing system that helped us get on the ground, it made sure that the wings and the tail and the cowlings were all clear of ice and snow and all that stuff, but once we're on the ground, and it's a day like today in Chicago where it's like 15 degrees, and you're taxiing around in slush, That slush can start to accumulate on different parts of the airplane.
And what that means is the aircraft, this, this sounds a little goofy, is accumulating weight. So I've got ice that's starting to attach to the landing gear and all that stuff. But occasionally you'll go out to the airport and you'll see them de icing and they're spraying de icing like fluid on the landing gear and stuff.
They're like, why on earth are they doing that? And the reason they're doing that, is to get rid of the ice, which has weight to it. We want the airplane to be as light as it can for takeoff. So they're going through another process to clear the entire aircraft, including the landing gear, any of these areas where slush or rain and that kind of thing could accumulate and freeze to get that, to get that off the airplane.

Noam Alon: And one other thing that I think is important to note, because passengers might notice this, if that situation happens where there's accumulated snow or slush on the ground, on our, on my aircraft, we'll actually leave the flaps down, and which is unusual for most passengers. They might think, well, oh, they forgot to bring the flaps up.
What we are afraid of is that things will get thrown up on the wing. And what the de icing people need to do is basically keep that clean for the next flight. So we'll leave the flaps down so they can get all that cleaned off for the next flight.

Doug Cameron: Okay. Well, thanks, Noam. Well, I, I take maybe five minutes every week to de ice my car.
It's obviously no surprise that every flight during the cold winter months in the North is suitably treated for everybody's safety. So, Noam, Geoff, thanks very much. We've all learned a bit today. I've certainly learned a lot from these gentlemen. So, if you'd like to learn more, don't forget to subscribe to the No Engine podcast.
And if you want extra information on flight delays and help yourself prevent them, then take a look at the KnowDelay.com website. Thanks everyone and see you next time.

Narrator: Thanks for joining the KnowEntry Podcast. For more information, visit KnowDelay.com.

Doug Cameron: Does every airport in the U. S. actually have de icing equipment, even in the south? Have you ever been caught short?
Noam Alon: There's always a deicing system. It may require waiting for the sun to warm up the airplane.

Daniel: Welcome to the KnowEntry Podcast, presented by No Delay.

Doug Cameron: Hi and welcome to the KnowEntry Podcast, where we take you behind the cockpit door to provide Some knowledge that might make your travel experience just a little bit smoother. Joined by Noel Malone and Geoff Murray, both experienced pilots, and Doug Cameron, long time aviation journalist, always willing to learn.
So, it's cold outside. the icing. How necessary is it? We've seen it happen at the gate. We've seen these big machines come. It's like you're going through a giant car wash. Lead us through the mechanics and where does it happen?

Noam Alon: Thanks, Doug. This time of year, I mean, the most important thing is the airplane like we've talked about in previous podcasts.
The airplane has to be clean of any kind of frozen precipitation, snow, ice, things like that, frost. So, it really happens in one of two places, either at the gate, either before departure or immediately after you push back, or it happens at a remote site, and that's a function largely of airport rules, maybe the capacity of the number of trucks, things like that.
But as far as the gate, that's typically the place where, if it's a relatively standard situation, not a lot of accumulated snow, That's the most efficient way because a lot of it, the prep can be done before passengers even arrive with the first application of what we call type one fluid. That's the removal component.
And then type IV is applied typically right after you push back because there is a time limitation on how long that fluid will last. So you want that to be efficient. So if you expect largely that from that point you're going to taxi the runway and get airborne. At the gate is typically where it happens, but sometimes it happens at a remote pad.

So, Geoff, I know you've experienced that recently.

Geoff Murray: Yeah, so, I mean, like Noam talked about, I mean, typically, even as flight crews, pilots, we like to see it done at the gate. Passengers do too, because typically you're going to, you'll get done de icing. You can sequence with the folks, tower and ground control and get out for a takeoff.
But if it's a more impactful weather event, heavy snow, ice, winds, think of, almost blizzard type conditions, what will typically happen is the airport. In conjunction with the airlines will say we're going to use the de icing pad and it's a big area looks like in the summer months just goes to a big area of open taxiway, but in fact, there's a whole science that goes into where you're going to park and when you know they're going to start the application like Noam said of the type one and type IV feel of fluid but it's a it's a centralized location and what that means is you're going to leave the gate you're going to start the motors and the the wings in the airplane may still have snow on them.
And you're going to taxi over to, at O'Hare, it's called the CDF, the Central De Icing Facility. It's on the west side of the airport, so you got to spend 20 or 25 minutes taxiing over there. You got to get yourself positioned into one of the one of the spots where they're going to want you to de ice, you're going to talk to all these specialized de ice guys on the radio who are going to sequence you there. Then you're going to have to go through the process of shutting down the motors and all that stuff. And then what's going to happen, what's next? You shut down the motors. What's next?

Doug Cameron: Can I just ask, would you tell the passengers that in fact we're not off to the runway, we're off to the, we're off to the de icing pad.

Geoff Murray: Absolutely, because at some airports, and I won't mention any specifically, that de ice pad can be further from your departure runway than the gate. So, not only do you need to tell all the folks that, hey, we're going to de ice, but it's like, hey, we're going to de ice in the next literally like in the next county.
And then we're going to have to come back to our county to take off. So it's a, when you're going to the de icing pad almost anywhere except maybe Anchorage and a couple other airports that are just machines with this stuff, it takes a lot of time.

Noam Alon: A lot. So if you're in the back of the airplane and you hear the pilot say, we're going to the centralized de icing facility, it's going to take longer than if you had just been Deiced at the gate, but that may not be an option.
Like Geoff said, it's usually a function of conditions. Could be some other things, but usually a function of conditions that they just simply can't handle at the gate, right?

Geoff Murray: I mean, Noam and I fly with different pilots all the time. And I remember flying with one captain and we're all like when we're leaving our house or leaving our hotel and getting ready, to go out and fly, we're looking at certain apps to see whether we're going to deiced at the gate or whether they're using the.
Deicing facility and all that stuff. And one guy that I flew with, I mean, he, he, he would literally beg, borrow, and steal. He would talk to everybody who could, Hey, any chance we get de iced at the gate? Hey, any chance we can, can avoid the de icing pad because it just adds so much time.
And it also, it also makes it more complex for an Oman I. There's more procedures we need to do. We need to get the aircraft configured differently, but it's just. Really time consuming.
Doug Cameron: So, Noam, you have to turn off the engines before you can get de ice, either, either at the pad or at the gate?

Noam Alon: No, that's a function of procedure. For the most part, if it's at the gate, it's with the engines off. But at the remote pad, it's usually with the engines on. Got it. Okay.

Doug Cameron: I can see why it makes sense to do it at the gate just because of proximity, but doesn't it make just a big old mess, which might be easier to clear up on a pad, which, might have knock on effects on other planes.
So how do they kind of manage the mess, if you know what I mean? Noam, you've spent a lot of time in airline operations. Is that something you have to have to

Noam Alon: think about? Absolutely. In fact, that's the thing that a lot of times beyond the weather conditions, one of the reasons that you'll have a remote pad is for collecting all that de icing fluid which is a lot easier to do in a centralized place than at a gate that isn't necessarily designed so they'll, they actually have machines that will sweep it up or drains that will specifically capture it because, I mean, these chemicals are not great for other than de icing. I don't know how healthy they are for, so anyway, so that's usually one of the reasons you'll have a de icing pad is so that you can capture that, those chemicals and, and avoid them getting into other, other systems.

Geoff Murray: And the other, the other reason is you've got the de icing equipment really in one facility. So, imagine Noam and I are talking as pilots, but as a guy who's doing the de icing. You've got to move the truck around, you've got people moving around the ramp, you've got marshallers all over the place.
Like if you're one of the guys driving the truck or doing the de icing, I am sure the last thing you want to be doing is doing the de icing at the gate. When you're out at the, at the de icing facility, we are out the de icing pad, you're literally, you're sitting in your truck, here comes an airplane. I spray this, I spray that.
I get on the radio, boom, that airplane goes and there's another one. So it, it is. I'm, I'm probably being a little too dramatic in how much time it takes. I am sure if you talk to the airport authorities, they'd be like, time to de-ice in a pad is a lot shorter than at the gate. 'cause we don't have to move the equipment around.
The guys don't have to get repositioned. Everything's really efficient.

Noam Alon: And to add to that, I would say at a pad, you're usually sprayed by two trucks, so each truck is doing one side of the aircraft, where at the gate, you have one, and as Geoff said, they're trying to navigate all the other ground equipment, and then get around to the other side of the airplane, much more, much tighter quarters, so, um.
Yeah, I think the pad is definitely much more efficient. It is not easy for those

Geoff Murray: folks. I mean, I was de icing once at an outstation. We were in Allentown, Pennsylvania getting de iced. So, a couple aircraft coming in and out of there every day. You've got one truck, that truck only de ices three or four and see the truck hit us.
I mean, it, it, it hit the aircraft, took us completely out of service. And the plane, the plane was gummed up for days.

Doug Cameron: Does every airport in the U. S. actually have de icing equipment, even in the south? Have you ever been caught short because they either haven't had enough or haven't had any?

Noam Alon: There's always a de icing system. It may require waiting for the sun to warm up the airplane. Correct, correct.

Geoff Murray: And I mean, I mean, it's a good question. I mean, it's kind of a funny question. Because there are airports in the south when there was the polar vortex, and I can't remember if it was two or three years ago, I'm thinking that like, maybe it was Tallahassee, Florida and that kind of thing that got impacted with just light snow, but it was enough snow and frost to contaminate the wing of the aircraft and they're like, What are we going to do?
We don't have

Doug Cameron: DIG. We brought it in Houston for two years. It snowed once in the two years and I think it was the first time in ten years it had snowed. Right. That's certainly had an impact. Bush is not O'Hare in terms of its spread. Right. Right. What else can go wrong in terms of, from a pilot's perspective, in terms of the availability of deicing equipment Geoff, I don't know if you've, apart from your car crash or plane bumping incident, what else?

Geoff Murray: I mean, it's the beginning, we're in the beginning of the deicing season now, we're just going into the holiday season and all that. And it was a week and a half ago, I was at an outstation, I won't mention where, they were getting It's psyched up. They're like, we're ready to de ice and all that stuff.
We were the number three or number four aircraft to get de iced. They came up, started de icing us. And you can hear the fluid hitting the top of the aircraft. You can look out the window, seeing them spray on the wings and that kind of thing. And all of a sudden it stops. We're like, what happened?
We're getting on the radio and we're like, hey, flight one, two, three, you guys. And they're like, the sheepish guy that's on the radio is like, well, we, we ran out of fluid. We got, we got to go back to the depot to fill up the truck.

Doug Cameron: Fill

Geoff Murray: up the truck. It's snowing. It was only type one fluid. And lo and behold, we need to go through the whole process, the type one again, ended up to type IV and all that stuff. But that was more emblematic. I would say, it's the beginning of the travel season, the beginning of the winter, winter travel season. Was your flight on time? We were not on time, but. We did attempt, we went really fast on the way back, I think, truthfully, I think we actually left 45 minutes or 50 minutes late, and we got to the gate. We were coming to O'Hare, we got to the gate at O'Hare maybe 5 or 6 minutes late.

Noam Alon: I'll tell you this, just from some of my experience working in other jobs in the airline at the larger hubs in particular, they're in the off season, like around the summertime. There's all this pre planning, all this tabletop exercises to prevent exactly what Geoff just described from happening.
It's like, how do we, what did we learn from last season about where to stage the trucks and how much fluid do we need and what are the long term forecasts and all these. variables, there's so much planning that goes into this so that while there likely will be a delay, how do we minimize it?
How do we make sure that from our passenger's perspective, we're doing this as quickly and as efficiently as possible?

Doug Cameron: But you can still get hit by curveballs. A few years ago, I remember there was like a national shortage of particular types of fluid. Correct, correct. You guys get everybody in a, in a milk particular.

Geoff Murray: Yeah. And this fluid isn't. It's not like you can just go fill up a truck with the de icing fluid you're getting down at your auto parts supply store. I mean, this is like heavily engineered really remarkable Fluid and a truck needs to carry two types of it. It's got the type one which is to clear the aircraft It's the type IV which is to keep the aircraft clear after it's already been cleared.
So it's a really Big deal. And in, and in terms of the desktop exercises, the preparation, I mean, there is a, I think they actually call it like the Super Bowl of de icing. And there's, there's a group of, of airline folks who keep track of, Hey, there was a big snow event in Denver and Seattle, and they will, will award the airport that did the best.
Like folks who do this, take it really, really seriously. It's a, it's a big

Doug Cameron: deal. Does it not drip off the wing? How does it clean itself? How does the plane clean itself? It's actually a

Noam Alon: remarkable, property, remarkable properties of chemistry. So it's actually very thick, very sticky, almost like molasses.
And when it's applied to the wing, it stays on so that it can, any precipitation that's falling, the snow or ice, is captured by the fluid. But you don't want Gallons and gallons of this liquid on your wing as you're taking off. So as you roll down the runway, what you'll notice roughly around, let's call it about halfway down the takeoff roll, but it happens at about 100 knots, but as a pastor you might not know that speed. But about halfway down the runway, if you're looking out the window, you'll see it sheer off. And it basically becomes like water and runs off the wing carrying any accumulated snow that it's captured and leaving the wing clean. And without all that extra weight so you can take off and the airplane can meet its performance requirements for takeoff.

Geoff Murray: It's actually pretty remarkable. Yeah, it's remarkable stuff. I mean, it's remarkable. But it is slippery as heck on the ramp. I mean, even from a safety perspective, I think of, well, I mean, Noam, you, you ran an operations control center at one point. I'm sure the airports don't like the fact that they de ice.
at the gate because that fluid is so slippery. You've got folks loading bags, doing the fueling and all that stuff. I am sure it is a big time safety hazard.

Noam Alon: Yeah, oh yeah. Lots of

Doug Cameron: injuries

Noam Alon: in

Doug Cameron: the

Noam Alon: winter.

Doug Cameron: Okay, but for the passenger's safety. So, Noam, Geoff, thanks very much. We've covered a lot of ground here.
De icing is absolutely necessary for safety, but it can also be both very time consuming and have a pretty big impact on your, your journey time. So. Hopefully everyone's learned a little bit here about the process and at least how not to be frustrated about it. So thanks for listening to the KnowEntry podcast and again if you want to learn a little bit more about the travel process then you can look at No Delay which can offer exclusive information about ways to reduce your travel time by being aware of potential delays.
So, thanks again, and we'll see you next time.

Daniel: Thanks for joining the KnowEntry podcast. For more information, visit Knnodelay.com.

Geoff Murray: When you're flying in restricted visibility, you're paying close attention, you're briefing everything in detail, and within literally a split second, you're executing what's called a missed approach, effectively abandoning that approach, heading out to a holding pattern. Flying to another airport and during that period of time, the flying typically tends to be pretty normal. It feels normal. You can't see out the window, but until that last minute, you just don't know whether you're going to get to the destination or not.

Daniel: Welcome to the no entry podcast presented by KnowDelay.

Doug Cameron: Hi and welcome To the no entry podcast where we take you behind the cockpit door to make that travel experience just a little bit more stressful. I'm Doug Cameron. I've been an aviation journalist for the best part of 40 years, but more importantly, I've been a passenger for 45 years. That's my only qualification to help you and to help me get through that travel journey. I'm joined by Geoff Murray and Noah Malone, both longtime pilots. Geoff, where have you been recently?

Geoff Murray: So where have I been recently? Well, I'm heading to LaGuardia this afternoon. Uh, like Noam, I was in Toronto the other day.
I was out in Monterey, Mexico a few days ago. I've been a pilot for, uh, almost 40 years, an airline pilot for about 20 years. Aviation consultant during that period of time also ran the supply chain team for a major U. S. airline, but, uh, flying is my passion and I really enjoy being an airline pilot. I know,

Noam Alon: where have you been?
Just recently, as Geoff mentioned, I was just in Toronto. Been bouncing back and forth between the coasts. I've been an airline pilot for over 25 years and also held a number of management roles for major airline, including running the operations control center where we make all the decisions about cancellations, delays, routing of crews, etc.
So, Doug Cameron: passionate about flying too. Great. Well, we're going to draw on everything both of you know, and in later episodes, we're going to be joined by the guests who are going to tell us what they know, which again, can make everybody's flights just that little bit easier. We're going to start with the big one, weather.
It's probably the biggest source of frustration, the biggest source of uncertainty for passengers. The statistics are there. Three quarters of, uh, delays are down to weather. Now, while most flights are, uh, arrive on time. It's the weather that concerns people and obviously concerns pilots. You're at the front.
So Geoff, you start us off. Everybody wants to know how to try and avoid delays. So what are the big weather delay issues that you as pilots and flight crew So,

Geoff Murray: as you noted, Doug, 75 percent of the flight delays are caused by weather and, and frankly, as a pilot, there are a myriad of variables that we look at that could potentially influence whether a flight is delayed, whether we have to have what's called an alternate, meaning if we can't get to our destination, where else will we fly to if the weather is too bad, but the big ones are, are frankly, fairly obvious.
I mean, it's snowstorms, thundershowers, heavy rain, wind. But as Noam and I will get into later in this podcast and in others, there's also just dozens of variables and parameters that we're looking at constantly that can influence the performance of the aircraft and importantly, the ability for us to get to the destination.
Doug Cameron: Noam, before I leave the house, I'll look out the window, I'll maybe check the weather app for the weather at my destination, I'll get to the airport, I'll get to the gate 45 minutes before. You as a pilot, an hour before the flight, what do you know and which perhaps passengers should bear in mind when they're making their final travel plans, what do you know that passengers should bear in mind as well about potential weather issues and how that might factor into your flight.

Noam Alon: Yeah, weather is really more than just what's happening at your airport where you're departing. There's that, there's also the weather en route, and then there's weather at the destination. And so we take all of that into account. There is a little bit of additional consideration where the airplane that you're going to be flying, where it's coming from, and is there weather at that airport.
And so we take all of that into account before, to make sure that the flight operates on time.

Doug Cameron: Geoff, what's uh, what's the kind of worst weather news that you can get in your pre flight briefing?

Geoff Murray: Boy, there are so many, but I'd say, probably one of the worst is restricted visibility because you can fly in it.
It typically doesn't knock the airplane around the way the winds or thunderstorms or that kind of thing, but when you're flying in a restricted visibility situation, you're paying close attention. to the crew member or the other pilot you're flying with. You're briefing everything in detail you could, you could make a perfect approach to the airport, but the visibility could be limited or the ceiling is too low.
And within literally a split second, You're executing what's called the missed approach. You're, you're effectively abandoning that approach, heading out to a holding pattern, flying to another airport. And during that period of time, I mean, your performance is best. The communication is the best. The flying typically tends to be pretty normal.
It feels normal. You can't see out the window, but until that last minute, you just don't know whether you're going to get to the destination or not.

Doug Cameron: Now Geoff mentioned communication. We're still, uh, we haven't taken off yet in our hypothetical flight. What sort of information do you try to impart to passengers and indeed did your fellow, uh, fellow crew members, but before you take off based on what you know and also your experience of what can change too?

Noam Alon: Yeah, that's a great question. In fact, I mean, this is part of my standard briefing both to the co pilot and to the flight attendants. Try to give as much information as possible to the passengers to let them know what kinds of things we're considering, just like Geoff mentioned. Most often, the weather does not cause a delay, but when it does, I try to be as transparent as possible.
And taking all the considerations that we talked about previously. Now, what can

Doug Cameron: change on route, Geoff? Uh, again, it's unknowns, which probably upset passengers most of, if they know a little bit, if they know it's, it's snowing heavily where they left or it's snowing heavily where, where they're arriving. Uh, what, what could change and how do you monitor it?
And again, how do you try to communicate that to, to passengers?

Geoff Murray: Right. So there's, like we talked about in the beginning, there's a lot of things that can change, I would say, and I presume no one would agree with this, some of the most challenging flying typically is in the summer when you've got thunderstorms and rain showers, because a thunderstorm or rain shower can sit on top of an airport.
It could be five miles from the airport. In both of those instances, it will restrict arrivals and delay aircraft into an airport. So, we're always monitoring the movement of thunderstorms and rain showers in the winter. We're looking at things like, how fast the snow is falling, how much accumulation is there, because even a quarter inch difference in snow accumulation Can can mean an airport operating normally to an airport with restricted or no arrivals.
And we're watching all of that in real time when we're airborne. And then, just like Noam said, before we even depart, when we brief as a crew, we're telling everybody, hey, the snow's falling. If it picks up by a quarter inch, they're going to restrict the arrivals. Our alternate is this airport. So everybody.
is briefed, everybody understands the information that we're working with, and then I'll have Noam talk about how he talks to the passengers, because that tends to be a different conversation.

Doug Cameron: I'd love to hear more about that, Noam. Yeah, how do you, uh, with all these imponderables and changing, a quarter inch of snow can fall up, uh, fall pretty quickly, so a lot of changing variables.
How are you trying to impart that?

Noam Alon: Well, I think, transparency is really the key and weather models have gotten a lot better over the over recent years, but there are still some elements of weather like Geoff talked about thunderstorms in the summer and some of the winter operations like ice pellets.
It's not as Transcribed be simple sometimes as snow or wind, which largely we can figure in a plan and we can communicate that very clearly. It's going to take us 15 minutes to de ice and take us 30 minutes to taxi, whatever it might be. But ice pellets, uh, in the wintertime or thunderstorms in the summertime can create a lot of very dynamic, uh, situations where We can have a fairly clear idea of what we think it's going to be and then the conditions change so quickly and the impact on the operation is pretty significant.
So what I try to do is, in all honesty, is try to be transparent. I share what I know. If we happen to be stuck at the gate for a long time, I'll let passengers come up and ask questions to try to relay what information I have. And then as things change, I do this, I update people on that information.

Doug Cameron: So the weather is obviously dynamic. How does that then feed into Where planes actually fly in the sky, does that change how they're either spaced or that the height that you fly at? How does that change?

Geoff Murray: Oh, it has a, the weather has a big impact on that. I mean, the weather in an airport, weather that restricts arrivals at an airport will always lead to delays because the airport, the air traffic control, Leaders need to make greater separation between aircraft.
So instead of, for example, O'Hare accepting 60 or 80 aircraft an hour, they may have to go down to 30 or 40 an hour, depending on the weather. So the configuration of that weather and the variability Of that weather is really difficult to predict. So just like Noam said, transparent with the passengers say, Hey, there is a chance of a delay.
There is a chance we may need to go to our alternate. Our alternate is this, this airport. And the other thing to keep in mind is unlike flying 10 or 20 years ago is the folks in back. often have similar information to what we have. I mean, I've had passengers when we've diverted, they're like, Hey, I knew we were diverting five minutes before you made the PA because I was watching our ATC monitor on my phone.
So they saw us diverting to Indianapolis when we were supposed to go to O'Hare and that kind of thing. So in many cases, the folks in the back, I mean, while they may not know as much as you, because they don't have all, they know a lot.

Doug Cameron: Got it. And is that. Basically because of safety or is it because of workload or is a mix of the two?
Why, why is, why are the planes spaced out further? And I guess they can also make change, ask you to change your speed as well, I guess.

Noam Alon: Right. I'll share with you. So on a beautiful day with light winds and clear skies, what air traffic controllers do is they allow pilots to maintain separation visually with other airplanes.
And when you do that, you can bring the airplanes in as close as safety allows. How far is that? It's about 30 seconds. It's, it varies by the speed of the airplane, about 30 seconds. If you picture an airport, large, busy airport, and you see all the airplanes stacked up one behind the other, arriving at. In a runway, when you can see as a, as a passenger on the ground, think of those days as the days where the airplanes are most closely put together.

Geoff Murray: Like Noam said, 30 seconds, it's generally three or four miles. Three or four miles before I mean between aircraft that way the aircraft that's following can see the aircraft in front and it enables ATC to effectively hand off that separation to the flight crew versus the ATC versus the ATC folks on the ground.
Right.

Noam Alon: And then once you add weather, now the pilots can't do that visually, so the air traffic controllers have to do that using their instrumentation, their radar. And so by definition, they have to separate the airplanes a little bit further apart. And if you imagine that an airport is filled to capacity in terms of the number of flights, now you start to build delays because longer times between flights means each, the airport can only accept it.
Uh, a certain number per hour, and now it can accept fewer because of that larger separation. You might

Doug Cameron: go from 30 seconds and three or four miles to, to what sort of, what sort of distance and what sort of timing? Yeah, about 45 seconds or five

Noam Alon: miles, something like that. Okay.

Geoff Murray: And, and sometimes more.
Sometimes more sometimes could be 10 miles and really restrictive weather conditions and that kind of thing again with when they're landing on different runways. And we'll talk about that in another podcast is it's way too rich to cover to cover just in one session, but there's a lot of variables.

Doug Cameron: Right. Now, certainly passengers may have been at the gate and heard an announcement that there's a ground stop. Maybe you can explain that and explain what it means to, if your flight hasn't taken off, and what it means if you're en route. So, I'm going

Geoff Murray: to cover that one because you were, uh, when you were running the operation for one airline, you were dealing with those every single

Noam Alon: day. Right. Thanks. Yeah. So, think about this. On any given day, On average, the same number of flights are scheduled every day, right? And the airline, you're buying your ticket as a passenger well before the airline knows, and air traffic control knows what the weather is. But now the weather shows up, and when it surprises air traffic control, let's say it wasn't forecasted, a ground stop is a tool to stop aircraft that are not in the air, stop them on the ground so that the air traffic controllers can manage the airplanes that are already airborne, already sequenced for the airport, and Manage those airplanes while stopping airplanes that would otherwise be scheduled to fly to get airborne that usually turns into something else that you've probably heard about, which is a ground delay program, and that is now we know what the air traffic controls knows what the delay is and basically says, Okay, we can handle X number of airports and they start to assign us a departure time to all the flights that are scheduled for the rest of the day.
And so those are two tools. The ground delay program and the Okay. Uh, ground stopper, two tools air traffic control uses to manage flights in at a metered rate that is less than what is normally scheduled.

Doug Cameron: And who decides when a, a ground delay or a ground stop program comes into force, and for passengers more importantly, when it's lifted and they can, they can hopefully get on their way.

Noam Alon: Yeah, that's the air traffic control system, it's done in combination with the local air traffic controller and the national airspace controllers because you can imagine flights are coming from, depending on the airport, all over the world and so managing all of that traffic, it's a combination of very coordinated effort between air traffic controllers and of course the airlines too.
Can airlines ask

Doug Cameron: to be moved around or appeal or you get your place and you get your place because that's the way it is? Yes.

Noam Alon: I mean, that is literally what I used to do every day. And so what the air traffic control system does is they say, we typically, let's take O'Hare as an example. We typically can handle a hundred flights an hour into the airport, but because of weather now we can only handle 60, we have 60 slots.
Airline A, you are scheduled to have 50 slots. Uh, uh, now because it went from 100 to 60, went down by 40%, you had 50 airplanes. Now you, that goes down to 40%, you can decide which of your flights takes those 50 slots. 40 percent fewer slots. And what happens is, is some flights, maybe an international flight, keeps going because it's already in the air. And the flight that's very close to O'Hare gets cancelled or delayed for a long time. So it's up to the airline to manage with the fewer slots that are provided by ATC.

Geoff Murray: Right. Noam dealt with this every single day in kind of a really thematic rule there. is the regional airlines are disproportionately delayed or canceled.
And the simple reason is, they're not carrying as many passengers. So when Nome was making those decisions, at the top of that food tree were the international flights. They've already departed. They're carrying 300, 400 passengers. Then it was the wide body domestic flights. Then it was the high yield domestic flights.
And at the bottom of that food tree, where guys like me were the regionals and the regionals were disproportionately cancelled or delayed. And the data shows this when there's a weather event. I mean, plain and simple.

Noam Alon: And it's a function, it's a function of the revenue, but it's also a function of alternative means to get people moving, right?
You can, if we're taking, let's say, I don't know, pick an airport, Los Angeles. So if there's a big weather event in Los Angeles and the international flights coming from Japan. There's no alternative, right? So that flight has to operate. But the flight that may have connected from, uh, San Diego, you can get on a bus and drive to L.
A. To catch your flight or you can get in a car. So there are alternatives to that that also are part of the consideration.

Geoff Murray: And speaking of that, and speaking as a regional pilot who literally is, I mean, I was in Moline the other day, Peoria, South Bend, If there is a weather event in Chicago, and I'm sure there's people at my airline that would get mad at me for doing this, myself and the captain will go out, talk to the passengers and say, Hey, we're heading up to Chicago.
Chicago's got rain showers or snow showers or whatever. There's a rental car booth right there, and there's a bus station right there, and you may be better off getting in a car, or getting in a bus, or in some cases getting on a train to get to Chicago. I mean, it's, it's so important to be transparent and to be thinking of these alternatives, but the closer you are to one of these hub airports when you're delayed, the more, when they're operating with delays, the more likely it is that you're going to be delayed.
Plain and simple.

Doug Cameron: Absolutely. Good luck finding a train in the Midwest, or at least more than one. In Milwaukee. This is true. That's true. That's true. You mentioned a few airports there, Geoff, up in Toronto, it snows there. Everyone knows it's foggy in San Francisco. So just in terms of your kind of travel checklist, where are places where it's just more commonplace in terms of weather delays?
And you should be aware of that.

Noam Alon: I think it is partly a seasonal answer to that question in general, you can expect more consistent delays is in the northeast of the U. S. Uh, in particular, the New York airports. There's just so much traffic and so little real estate. Newark in particular is a tough airport.
As you mentioned, San Francisco again seasonally. When there's ground fog over there, uh, that could be difficult. And in the summertime, almost all the large hubs are impacted, but especially in the southeast, in Florida, those airports every day. It's almost like Hogwarts. Yeah.

Geoff Murray: Every day. Literally, I mean, I, for my other job, for my non flying job in consulting, I used to have to go down to Florida fairly regularly.
And I would rarely, if ever, take an afternoon flight down there. Even if I had to kind of rearrange my plans to get on a 6am or 7am flight from O'Hare. down to Florida. I would do that because I was confident I would get there. Whereas going in the afternoon, you get all these, pop up thunderstorms, rain showers, they're impacting arrivals, they're impacting sequencing. I mean, they, they just gum up travel and no one, no one, I monitor this stuff. You see it every single day. day in the afternoon, FAA will publish or delays in Orlando, delays in Miami, delays in Fort Lauderdale, Tampa. I mean, it's, they're just, they're prevalent in the summer months.

Doug Cameron: Yeah, no, I'm definitely a huge fan of the, of the early flight without picking on San Francisco.
It does just make me think of visibility and I've, over the years I've landed and wondered how on earth did we manage to, to land here? Uh, and on other days, uh, when we have landed and we've had been in a holding pattern, why couldn't we, uh, why couldn't we land when the pilots mentioned visibility?
No, maybe you could take us through what the decision on, on when you're, you're able to land because. Are you going to San
Geoff Murray: Francisco tonight?

Noam Alon: I am. I am. Right. Tell us about it. Weather looks good. It's a function of a lot of things. But in addition to the visibility, wind conditions also impact in particular, San Francisco. So when the weather is, you typically land on the runways that point west, westward, the two eights. And when the wind is favorable for those, the airport can typically handle a pretty good volume even with low visibility. It's when you get strong cross winds. So they and they typically come off the bay.
Landing, if they're from the north or from the, uh, from the south, uh, that can cause significant delays when the visibility is, is more restrictive. Uh, but essentially like Geoff indicated, we brief all that up as pilots. We brief, uh, the, the flight attendants and the passengers, we explain what we're going to do.
And in some cases. Even when the visibility is really low, some of the aircraft can do an auto land, which means even in a very low visibility situation, the airplanes can land themselves. It's a very precise procedure that we run, that we train for all the time. And in that case, even with very low visibility, the flights can arrive.
Now, not all aircraft are equipped with that equipment. And so depending on the kind of flight you're on, the kind of aircraft you're on, you may not be able to land when other airplanes are able to land. Okay,

Doug Cameron: so, so after landing, just to wrap up guys, what sort of curve balls can the, can the weather throw after you've actually landed?
Can ice make you have to taxi slower or, I, I guess gates can get gummed up, but yeah. What, what are the kind of curve balls you might find after, after you've landed and which, frankly passengers might get frustrated about, but, but less so if they, if they know what could happen.

Geoff Murray: I'll take that one. There was a couple of those a week ago that we had a really good cold snap here in the Midwest.
And I'm again doing a lot of the flying in and out of the regional airports and some of the larger airports. We had an early morning departure. We were going to a smaller airport. They had the snow, ice, some freezing rain and all that stuff. We touched down, we get to the gate, we get marshalled into the gate.
And the jetway is literally frozen. They can't move the jetway. So they push us off the gate, they bring up some stairs, the folks walk off the aircraft via the stairs, across the ramp, into the, uh, end of the terminal. So, I mean, there are so many things when there's a weather event. I mean, in O'Hare alone, when it's really cold, they have trouble unsealing the basically the fueling. What do you call them, Noam, the fueling hydrants? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's gas. Right, but, and Noam's got more stories from his mainline flying. I mean, a million things that could go wrong.

Noam Alon: In addition to the things Geoff had mentioned, I mean, you could have, it's typically, icing is not so much an arrival issue as much as maybe the airplane that is at the gate that you're going to occupy can't depart because it needs to be de iced, uh, or there might be some other issue with, with that aircraft departing that often is, is the reason your arrival is delayed, uh, into the gate.

Geoff Murray: Let me, I mean, a secondary kind of story to the one where they couldn't get the jetway operating, they hooked up a tug, the ramp was a little bit icy and the tug couldn't push the aircraft back because the wheels were spinning. So they had to move the tug, they had to bring over some. Some salt and some sand and that kind of thing to get the ramp clear so that the tug could push us back because the aircraft is powered by the motors.
It's not like we have little engines driving the wheels and all that stuff. We use the big engines to taxi around on the ground and all that stuff. But yeah, I mean, it could be a million different things that are going to impact

Doug Cameron: your ride. These tug wheels, though, get it going in no time. Okay, well, guys.
Thanks so much for this. This is the No Entry podcast from NoDelay. That's nodelay. com, K N O W, delay, which you can find out weather conditions up to three days before, which will certainly help smooth your travel, the better. So guys, thanks very much and we'll see you next time. Okay, safe travels.
Daniel: Thanks for joining the No Entry podcast. For more information, visit nodelay. com.

Doug Cameron: Hi, and welcome to the KnowEntry podcast from the folks at KnowDelay, where we take you behind the cockpit door, hopefully to improve your understanding of flying and make that traveling experience just a little bit less stressful. I'm your host Doug Cameron and I'm joined as ever by Noam Alon, Geoff Murray and Dennis Taylor.

Gentlemen, how are you? Doing great. Great. Very well. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, everybody. So, we are into the New Year, which means a couple of things. My dry January is already bust, and I've ordered my haggis for Burns Night on the 25th. It also means we're into winter weather season, and we've already had a couple of big events across the Midwest and elsewhere in the country. Big question I think a lot of people ask beyond looking out the window is, ,, when can you fly and when can't you just fly? Dennis, actually, you've all been out on the road. How has your initial storm season been?

Dennis Taylor: Well, actually, I live in Kansas City, so we just had a major system pass through here, and I was traveling right before this event. And watching the weather, ended up coming home a day early. And thankfully so, because we landed and at midnight, the night before, I wanted to get home. The next day, of course, I had to watch the flight, see if it operated, if I would have stayed in my primary. And guess what? It did. However, I would not have made it from the airport home, because the ice storm hit. And as we've talked about in other episodes, boy, ice is the one thing that really shuts down the airport and keeps us from flying. But it also keeps everybody from getting to the airport or getting home. And we've had problems with that in the Kansas City area. Then we had a blizzard the next day and it shut down all the operations.

Doug Cameron: So I was going to say, how long did it close things down for?

Dennis Taylor: Till Monday. So, the event started Saturday afternoon. And everything was pretty much closed till about 6 p. m. on Monday. And I think Noam even had an issue with that when he was flying. Where were you, Noam?

Noam Alon: I was flying from Chicago to Dallas Fort Worth, and we had a major deicing operation in Chicago, but the point, I think, Dennis is talking about is our routing had to take us around Kansas City, where normally we would fly through Kansas City Center, had to take us around that because they couldn't get controllers to work to be able to manage the volume of traffic. So, we ended up having to go east of Kansas City Center because of the weather in Kansas City. Really challenging.

Doug Cameron: If there's a blizzard, you're not, you're not going to take off for a line. Geoff, what kind of weather basically just does shut down the system? Either. either because of flying or as no mentions because the infrastructure isn't there, the controllers can't get to work or they time out or whatever.
So, what are the barriers to entry for, for your flight or my flight?
Geoff Murray: In the winter, I think there are many barriers to entry that can inhibit any of us from successfully pushing back and launching on a flight. In fact, in a blizzard. I've flown in a blizzard. I'm sure Noam and Dennis have flown in a blizzard. You're, you're looking at things like ceiling and visibility and other parameters. But in the winter, in the winter months, there's so many other dimensions at play. And one of the big ones is, and Dennis referenced it earlier, is the type of precipitation. There are certain types of precipitation. In spite of all the equipment we have on the airplane, all of the dispatch capabilities at the airline, all the deicing capabilities at the ramp, that we just can't fly in. So, you can have all the equipment at your fingertips, but if you see freezing rain, ice pellets, and a handful of other types of precipitation that are pretty specific. Actually, I mean, we can't fly. And to Dennis's point in freezing rain is a big one. I mean, in the flight that he was going to be on Saturday, got into Kansas City a few minutes later, there's freezing rain. I mean, it's remarkable that plane was able to land because if it had been delayed 20 or 30 minutes later than when it, it, it got in, it wouldn't have been able to land. So, so there's just so many different dimensions of work in the winter that can gum up your travel.

Doug Cameron: Who makes the call as to whether it's snow or freezing rain? I think a lot of people are curious about that. Who decides that you've crossed that threshold? Safety is paramount, obviously. So, who decides? I bet you've flown in all of this or decided that you're not going to fly in any of it.

Dennis Taylor: Well, it's the airports making that call. There are people on the ground, the freezing rain. Now, you can look out there and maybe say, wait a second here. This is not snow anymore. This is freezing rain. And usually by the time you have that thought, that's about the time the weather information system changes, says freezing rain and everything stops. So they're making the call. They've got people, that's their job. And it's not the individual pilot that's making the call. Is that a freezing rain or is that snow, right?

Geoff Murray: and and I mean it's actually, there are folks at every airport, Doug, who are trained in this stuff there, and I can't remember the exact terminology. It's like NOAA certified. Weather observers, but they're trained in recognizing, okay, this is the difference between freezing rain and ice pellets, but they're trained in this stuff, and they publish it. So, when it's published, it goes to pilots like Noam, me, Dennis, it goes to our dispatch team, and we'll get a message immediately. Hey, precipitation type just changed to freezing rain,

Geoff Murray: Dispatch. And you are stuck at the gate, even though you may have been deiced. All the equipment's on the plane, ready to go, and you're airborne, your wings are gonna get hot and all that stuff. But in spite of all that, you see freezing rain, ice pellets, that kind of thing.
You're not flying. Period.

Doug Cameron: So, Dennis, the weather changes, and Noam, you mentioned about having to take a big workaround because of a controller shortage. How long can all this last, and how can it go, cascade through the system? I think we've all experienced a 30 minute delay turning into two hours and, if you're very unfortunate, two days. So how does it cascade through the system? And then we can maybe talk about how to avoid it as best you can.

Noam Alon: Yeah, I think, I mean, that's one of the challenges with winter operations is that the systems tend to be really large in this case, I was departing from Chicago, we had icing conditions, we had a mixed precipitation, which we'll talk about in a little bit, but, major deicing event in Chicago, that same storm, we were actually on the edge of a storm that extended all the way to Kansas City and further south and east and west, so it covered a lot of states. So, it's really hard to avoid. But, in this case, the delays were a function of both what was happening in Chicago and then, in addition to that, and all the deicing operations that happened as a result of that deicing operation. In addition to that, the longer route that we had to fly because people couldn't get to work, the controllers couldn't get to work to fly us in the most straight route.

Doug Cameron: So are the winter storms less predictable than a summer thunderstorm or just longer lasting? What's the, how can you tell? How best to avoid and maybe when, when not to try and book if you don't absolutely have to.

Geoff Murray: Well, I mean, I'll chime in there's a lot of interesting dimensions here, but I mean, these systems are big, every news station has been covering this major weather event, but I was talking to a colleague of mine and, and he was flying Orlando, Houston, San Diego this week. So, I'm telling him, hey, I'm at O'Hare, it's a mess, we're deicing, and he goes. Dude, I'm in Orlando, I'm going to Houston, then I'm going to San Diego, it's all good. Are there still hub airports that are functioning normally? So, even when you're looking at this major weather event and if you're supposed to connect over Chicago, think about connecting over Houston. Or Dallas. There's always alternatives because while these systems are really, really big, it is very rare they will cover every single hub airport.

Noam Alon: Although I will say that Dallas was darn cold. Yes. It was darn cold. Yes. I think it was in the mid 30s.
Geoff Murray: Yes. Yes. But it was clear. No freezing rain, no precip, that kind of thing. Right. It was cold. But, in the same vein. You've got colleagues of ours, crew members who are like, hey man, I'm doing Orlando, Houston, San Diego today and everything's humming. So, the system overall seems kind of broke, but yet you've got these outliers of folks who are flying in and out of hubs that aren't impacted by the weather.

Doug Cameron: That, that, that's useful insight. And don't forget, as well as to subscribe to the podcast. Take a look KnowDelay.com where you can find ways to mitigate your potential delays. Dennis, turning back, back to you. You, you fly yourself personally. What, what kind of do you do to try to avoid things yourself if you're flying commercially and not for pleasure, shall we say, as opposed to business.

Dennis Taylor: Well, so obviously if it's too bad you don't go we have that option. I would say flying the type of flying I do now, there's, I don't have the dispatch. I don't have the infrastructure to help. So, it's a lot more work making sure things are safe and I can operate the flight safely. So. Just more work, but I get to make the decision when the go so, or not go.

Doug Cameron: What's the worst you've ever had a winter weather delay? I, I'm saying to Noam, what's the worst winter weather delay you've had? Have you been, have you had days rather than ever?

Noam Alon: Well, I would say this was actually last season we had a flight to Jackson Hole where the forecast was for Snow Squalls, which, for those who are familiar, or those who aren't familiar, it's a short airport, high elevation, difficult weather conditions, and in the wintertime, on top of all the normal things, it's all the snow. So, we were fueled with an alternate to take us to Denver, which is quite far from Jackson Hole, and you're carrying all that weight. But long story short, as we approached the airport, sure enough, the snow started to fall pretty intensely, so we did the approach to try to see if we could land. We couldn't do that.
So, we went around, we tried it a second time, ended up diverting to Denver, and the snow just kept coming and coming, so we ended up, in that case, actually canceling the flight, and all those passengers were accommodated. What was surprising to me, is that those passengers are so, they must be frequent flyers and going to that airport because they were not surprised and they were actually very understanding. They're like, look, we, we don't want you going landing when it's not safe. We appreciate the fact that you took a look and then they ended up all those passengers got accommodated on a later flight when the weather improved. So, but for us that ended up being over a day of a delay until we were able to get back in.

Doug Cameron: Noam, that's a good idea for another episode, actually, given all the, the kind of proliferation of direct flights to some of the snow airports as the father of a of a new snowboarder. He's very interested in going to Jackson Hole, and we know all the new flights that have started over the past year. So maybe we will get back to that in a, in a later episode. Geoff, you wanted to chime in.

Geoff Murray: I think, some of the, we, we've all got great examples, but I think some of the, the, the most complex ones in the winter are in a big hub airport. You're deicing, you board up, you get deiced, you, you start heading for the runway, you're number 30 for takeoff and you're what we call our, our holdover time. The time that the deicing fluid is good for, expires. We talked a little bit about this earlier. You got to go back to the gate and it can just end up into this perpetuating, very frustrating delay because everybody's trying to get out of the airport. Everybody's trying to deice, but there's like only one or two runways that are in use, and it just turns into a frustrating day at the airport. And I've had I've had multiple cancellations where we've made, two, maybe three attempts at getting out, can't do it. We run out of time, our legal time to be on duty. So, the flight has to be canceled. There's just, there's so many permutations in the winter because the weather can be so complex.

Doug Cameron: And it's such a, it's such a push on the infrastructure at the airport. Well, that's a good place to wrap up. We're in the business of reducing frustration, but we can't always work miracles. So, thanks again, Geoff Murray, Dennis Taylor, Noam Alon. I'm your host, Doug Cameron, and see you next time. Don't forget to subscribe below to KnowDelay.com.