Flying the CRJ200 in ORD
Posted by Jeffrey on December 10th, 2008
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Yesterday was one of those snow days in Chicago O’Hare (ORD).
Our day started out in FAR. Upon arriving at the airport, we had two hour “flow,” which means ATC was controlling our departure time, into ORD because of weather.
Eventually we got airborne and on our way. We were really not too late except that once we got on the ground, our gate was occupied so we had to sit in the “penalty box” for about 25 minutes. The “penalty box” is a waiting area off taxiway “B,” where airplanes can pull off to the side and be out of everyone’s way while they wait for their gate. Just a clever name, really.
While we sat there, the wind was blowing diagonally and visibility was down to about 2 miles. Everything was moving slow.
With all the delays and the slow downs though, passengers, pilots, and controllers were all keeping their heads about themselves and everything was going pretty smoothly. I’m always impressed by the controllers in ORD. Somehow they keep it all together and really control the situation.
Well, eventually our gate came open and we deplaned. We were scheduled to go to CVG next, so I jumped off the airplane when we got there and went and got some coffee. It had already been a long day.
Then we boarded and we got hit with another curve ball.
The CRJ200 is a good airplane but just a little underpowered. Due to the fact that CVG was only a 50 minute flight and they had rain there, we had an alternate airport in case we couldn’t get into CVG. That means that we had to carry extra fuel and when we got our final takeoff numbers, we were about 900 lbs overweight. Well by this time the jetway bridge had already been pulled back and we had everyone on board. So — we had the gate agent bring back the jetbridge and deplane five people. Always a wonderful experience!
Waiting to be de-iced in ORD
OK, passengers are off and jetbridge is away…again.
Now we have to wait for the airplane de-iced. 20 minutes later we are ready to go.
Now the airplane is de-iced and we push back. We end up waiting almost 15 minutes to get clearance to taxi.
Once we start to taxi, the line for 32L is long so we wait another 20 minutes for takeoff.
All this time it is blowing snow and I’m tired.
Once we finally make it to the runway, we do our final contamination check and all looks good so we depart.
I always joke that the hardest part about flying for an airline is getting out of the gate. Usually, but not always, the flying part is the easiest.
The rest of the flight was uneventful.
However, once we got to CVG, just as we were about to push back from the gate, ORD went into a ground stop. Airplanes were going “missed,” i.e. they would be in a position to land but couldn’t and would have to continue flying. In this case it was because of the wind and blowing snow that airplanes couldn’t land. Anyway, the airport update on the groundstop wasn’t going to be for another hour which meant that we weren’t going to really know when we were going to depart until the update came. Well, once the groundstop was lifted and we found out our EDCT time it was three hours away. That would have us departing at 11pm.
Now, I was already getting really, REALLY tired and I was seriously considering cancelling the flight myself, which I’ve never done, but I was THAT tired. Luckily, I didn’t have to do that and whoever controls the cancellation of flights cancelled ours. Now we were a ferry flight, and just had to get the airplane to YWG.
From then on it was a “normal” flight. We got our flight release and blasted off and eventually landed in YWG at 12:30 am. Long day!
Be safe…
Jeffrey
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Related articles and links:
- Expect Departure Clearance Times (http://flycrj.com/2008/10/09/expect-departure-clearance-times-edct-to-ord/)
- FAA Expect Departure Clearance Time Lookup (http://www.fly.faa.gov/edct/jsp/edctLookUp.jsp)
- FAA Flight Delay Information (http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/usmap.jsp)
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