Last departure of night misses slot!!???

dohouch

Zaragoza to STN Ryanair due to depart at 22.30 this week Monaday, no more flights listed after this. Didn't start loading till 22.20 and then at 22.40, were informed we had missed our slot and would have to spend 45 minutes on the plane.

Is this because of congestion at STN or is there another reason?

castie

Slot doesnt necessarily refer to the departing airport although it can.

I dont have too much knowledge on it but I think there is a slot for your flight path and a slot for landing also.

Was on Singapore Airlines Singpore to Sydney this week and we were delayed for 40 minutes because the flight estimated arrival time was 40 minutes before the scheduled arrival time and as such could have needed to circle for awhile.

crisco10

castie wrote: »

Slot doesnt necessarily refer to the departing airport although it can.

I dont have too much knowledge on it but I think there is a slot for your flight path and a slot for landing also.

Was on Singapore Airlines Singpore to Sydney this week and we were delayed for 40 minutes because the flight estimated arrival time was 40 minutes before the scheduled arrival time and as such could have needed to circle for awhile.

Got stung horrible by that in LHR a while ago. Flew in from JNB and due to tail winds we landed 1.5 hours early. Our gate wasn't ready so we had to sit on the plane with our seat belts on for about an hour until the gate was ready. Pretty torrid time, I needed to pee!!

lord lucan

I think the slot covers the path across Europe and a missed slot requires a call to Eurocontrol to create a new slot and path. That's how i understood it anyways.

sparrowcar

By the sounds of it your delay was congestion in STN. However it seems a bit strange for a slot delay at that hour of a Monday night? I presume you would have landed just after midnight if your flight had left at 2240. So with you slot delay you probably landed some time around 0100 which is generally a quiet time in european aviation?

Many airports have night curfews so if you miss the curfew time you could have ended up with a slot delay of 5+ hours waiting for the airport to reopen.

Strange one alright.

Growler!!!

Could have been a delay at departure, enroute or destination. Some airports reduce the number of slots available at night to obey noise abatement procedures.

Also could be as simple as a cumulative delay throughout the day on preceding flights and Ops control missed it and didnt re-file the flight plan.

You will be surprised to know that the Ops department can be as busy if not busier at night in many airlines due to all line maint. being carried out when the aircraft are at their home bases.

dohouch

sparrowcar wrote: »

However it seems a bit strange for a slot delay at that hour of a Monday night?

Strange one alright.

Yeah, what surprised me was that slots were tight so late at night. Also we were only going to arrive later, if any night curfew was in place. By the way there were at least 5 flights that arrived later, I think the last one was 3.30 AM from Ibiza.