Cfm56 said:
FLL airport officials want to see airline growth at the airport but the delays at FLL are getting considerable at times. I've had less vectoring and speed controls on a good weather day into FLL than into LAX on a bad weather day. The waits for take-off get considerable too. They badly need to start using runway 13 for deparures and let arrivals come in on 9L. They really need another runway for airline use and have fallen way behind the 8 ball in preparing FLL for growth.
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The FLL capacity issue is huge, and is only going to get worse. 9L is really the only usable runway down there. I asked one of the tower supes there about going "LGA style" with cross runway operations. He said that they are not ruling it out, but that the intersecting operationd would be very difficult, as there are a number of problems. Some are field-related, and others are airspace:
1. 13-31 is only 7000 feet long with obstructions on both ends (elevated highways), and as such is quite restrictive for takeoffs for heavy loads and on hot days (think LGA but hotter and with big obstacles instead of Flushing Bay). This makes it a lousy departure runway, and due to said highways, there's not much room for expansion, even if it was displaced threshold for departure use only.
2. No precision approaches for arrivals on either end of 13-31. GPS RNAV provides some relief, but not all carriers or aircraft can do this. Lousy arrival runway, too.
3. Using 13 for arrivals interferes with FXE, since this final crosses FXE's RW8 final which is always in use there with less than 1000' vertical separation on-glidepath.
4. No room to expand the south parallel past its current 5000 feet, again due to the d@mn highways. Might help some if they allowed some arrivals there (RJ's and corporate would have no problem) but all jet traffic is currently prohibited by local ATC order to keep prop/slow traffic separated.
5. Issues with Miami approach control, which owns the airspace. Between the total traffic volume and especially the volume of foreign and GA traffic, the frequencies tend to get very congested. This situation is further hindered by the fact that Miami departure must release every departing aircraft as their traffic permits, which is why we are sometimes holding short with traffic on a 5-6 mile final and not allowed to go.
This one is going to get better before it gets worse..
..CT