Looking at that photo, I'm puzzled as to where all of the heavy jets that we all see landing park at. I dont see where one would be able to park, so where do they go?
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spacecadet From United States of America, joined Sep 2001, 3277 posts, RR: 14 Reply 4, posted (4 months 1 day 3 hours ago) and read 3293 times:
There's a lot of space, because the terminal is outside of the frame to the right. So you have the gates at the terminal, and then if a plane does need to sit parked for a while, they can park on the apron closer to the runway (you see some private jets parked there in the photo posted above, but larger jets can also park there).
Click this thumbnail and you can see the opposite view, with the terminal on the left and the extra parking on the right (still to the left of the runway):
You can see an AF A340 at a gate at the terminal, and then at least the tails of a UA 737 and AA 757 parked on the apron.
It is actually a very crowded airport, but there seems to be enough space. There's also extra space east of the terminal near the airport perimeter - commercial jets don't seem to park there (I'm guessing it's technically GA parking) but large private jets do. You see 737's, 727's, etc. parked right up against the fence, you can practically walk up along the road next to the airport and touch them.
btw the big jets don't sit there very long. Both the AF and KLM flights leave about 2-3 hours after they arrive, so they never have to park away from the gate. I'm not sure what the deal is with those AA and UA planes, but most flights just offload, reload fuel and passengers and then leave. So there doesn't need to be a lot of parking for commercial jets.
[Edited 2013-02-18 10:15:09]
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cschleic From United States of America, joined Feb 2002, 1052 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (4 months 1 day 3 hours ago) and read 3142 times:
IIRC, there isn't much space for private jets and other smaller planes. When it's really crowded, don't they sometimes have to go to another airport to park overnight?
g500 From United States of America, joined Oct 2011, 751 posts, RR: 0 Reply 6, posted (4 months 1 day 3 hours ago) and read 3052 times:
Quoting c5load (Thread starter): Looking at that photo, I'm puzzled as to where all of the heavy jets that we all see landing park at. I dont see where one would be able to park, so where do they go?
"All heavy jets"
you mean the 3 heavy jets that land there daily?
That airport looks much busier and larger than it really is
I'm not sure the 3 heavies are daily. I was there 2 weeks ago, and flight aware showed nothing bigger than a 757 for the day. IIRC KL and AF were roughly every other day, and I'm not sure who the third heavy belongs to.
spacecadet From United States of America, joined Sep 2001, 3277 posts, RR: 14 Reply 10, posted (4 months 1 day 1 hour ago) and read 2537 times:
Quoting YYCSpotter (Reply 7): There is an AA 752 that stays overnight for an early morning flight to MIA
That seems like a waste - MIA must be what, 90 minutes away? Why doesn't it make another round trip, at least? There's gotta be demand for it, at least during peak season - all the flights I saw going in and out seemed to be packed. This 757 was parked there starting at around 2PM - that's practically a whole day sitting there not making any money. Seems like they could do either another St. Maarten-Miami round trip and then park at something like 6PM, or they could even do a trip somewhere else on the east coast or in the Carribean and then return and park just a bit later.
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Maverick623 From United States of America, joined Nov 2006, 4783 posts, RR: 6 Reply 11, posted (4 months 1 day ago) and read 2252 times:
Quoting c5load (Thread starter):
Looking at that photo, I'm puzzled as to where all of the heavy jets that we all see landing park at. I dont see where one would be able to park, so where do they go?
In addition to the terminal being out of frame, the focal length causes an optical illusion of scale. That prop you see next to the runway is probably 2 miles away from where the picture was taken.
There's plenty of room for the few heavies SXM sees.
LimaFoxTango From Antigua and Barbuda, joined Jun 2004, 702 posts, RR: 0 Reply 13, posted (4 months 21 hours ago) and read 1853 times:
Quoting spacecadet (Reply 10): This 757 was parked there starting at around 2PM - that's practically a whole day sitting there not making any money. Seems like they could do either another St. Maarten-Miami round trip and then park at something like 6PM, or they could even do a trip somewhere else on the east coast or in the Carribean and then return and park just a bit later.
The 757 that overnights gets in at 9:55pm and leaves 9:55am the next morning.
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747classic From Netherlands, joined Aug 2009, 1815 posts, RR: 11 Reply 15, posted (4 months 14 hours ago) and read 1689 times:
SXM has no heavy traffic, however sometimes in the afternoon it can be a little crowded at the apron.
Most wide body aircraft arrive, turn around and depart within 1-1.5 hours, only very few have a night stop., the remainder of the flights is made up of inter island (domestic) traffic by smaller narrowbodies and a lot of turboprops.
817Dreamliiner From Montserrat, joined Jul 2008, 1489 posts, RR: 1 Reply 17, posted (4 months 7 hours ago) and read 1533 times:
Quoting spacecadet (Reply 14): Then what is the 757 sitting parked in the photo I posted? This was at about 2PM.
They also have a JFK flight that arrives at around 1, as for why they are parked where they are in the photo, it might be to allow the heavies to use the jetways, or that the use of the jetways is first come, first serve.
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