Ok. I am curious if other airlines experience what happens very commonly with AA at DFW. It is very common to land way ahead of schedule (especially coming from the west) and then wait for a gate. The other night we arrived 30 minutes early and ended up being 20 minutes late due to, according to the captain, mechanical issues with plane currently on the gate and ramp congestion. It was only until people were going to miss their connections that we went to another gate. Does this happen in ATL or MSP or EWR? ( examples of DL/UA hubs). Is this what “padding” the schedule leads to? AA is adding routes/capacity at DFW so I am curious as to the future of this never ending problem. Do airlines ever have spare gates for use in certain situations? Thanks for educating me.

I've experienced this before with AA (Eagle) at the LAX remote terminal. Luckily my connecting flight was delayed so I didn't miss it, even though I also had to take a shuttle bus from the remote AA terminal to their main terminal 4 once I finally got off of the plane.

I'm sure this happens a lot at most major hubs. It seems like there should be at least a few common-use gates open at these major hubs for situations like this, but there's just no room for that in most of the passenger terminals.

Its not just gates necessarily, it can be staffing related. If you have too many airplanes that are a combination of late off the gate due to delays and early arriving aircraft there are instances at hubs where you may have to wait for a gate.

There can be an open gate but it may not accommodate the specific aircraft size or there may be no staff to meet in the inbound flight.

Yes, I've experienced this at MSP and ATL as well.

This also happens routinely with AA at MIA. At 6-7 PM it’s not uncommon to see up to five or six airplanes sitting in the penalty box waiting for their gates to open up.

DFW at night: America's worst run airport. The airport and all its workers seem to loathe their jobs, their work environment, and most important, their customers the moment the sun goes down. And that's just when everything is going according to schedule. Throw in a delayed flight, and you'll be left to the wolves.

I have experienced this twice at DFW, both times FSM-DFW-SAN, and both times with a more-than-two-hour connection time that I have nearly missed. My last FSM-DFW flight included a three hour layover - but a mechanical delay at FSM delayed us for 1.5 hours. No problem, we thought, we've still got time! And in fact, we actually arrived at DFW within thirty minutes of our scheduled arrival time.

And then we drove all over that airport and stopped at the extreme southern end. And waited "for a gate to open up". All that time we made up? Lost it, sitting for more than an hour in that CR2, waiting for "a gate". There is no more frustrating feeling than knowing you have a connection to make - the last one of the night - and then you sit trapped in a metal tube, feet away from your connecting airplane, only to know that that there's absolutely nothing you can do. Finally, a gate miraculously opens up (where were they going to schedule us in the first place, had we arrived on time?), and you think, "okay, all is well".

Nope, not at DFW. First, there's the waiting for your gate-checked luggage. Fifteen minutes go by before our bags show up. One of the passengers on this flight was also connecting to SAN, in a wheelchair. The promised skycap? Please! They all went home at 7 PM. AA personnel? Zero. We acted as SkyCaps and got that other passenger to the gate for the flight to SAN. In our short transfer time, we look for an open restaurant to grab a bite to go - but sorry, DFW closes all of its restaurants at 7:30 PM. Not a single place to purchase food in Terminal B or A.

Then we arrived at the gate for SAN and got a dirty look from the gate agent for holding up the flight, preventing them for going home early, as well as inconveniencing the rest of the plane. Truly, I have NEVER had an airline employee look at me with that "where the f*** have you been?" look anywhere else, but twice it has happened at DFW.

And of course, the "Buy On Board" items? Sold out before take-off. So, I had my mouthful of soda, my no peanuts and my no buy on board, and sat there hangry for three hours.

Since this has happened to me twice - and ONLY at DFW in the evenings, I will never fly through this airport after 6 PM ever again. There are simply no words for how atrociously they handle their customers after a certain time.

Forgive the rant, but AA at DFW is utterly maddening in the evening. Daytime operations? Always a delight, always helpful. But later in the day it is atrocious. I would love to believe that AA cares what happens to its passengers, its aircraft, and its operations, and for the most part I do - but not at DFW at night. Sorry AA, but this inability to deal with your IRROPS after dark is unique to you.

Apologies for the rant, but fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Never again.

I've had that happen to me numerous times with American and American Eagle at DFW. While it has happened occasionally at DEN and IAH (the other two airports I connect through) it has been a one-off thing. Not the constant issue it seems to be at DFW.

I too have seen this at DFW by AA way more than anywhere else. Delta and UA I feel like change gates more often . At DFW once like you we landed early, everyone missed their connections because we wait for an hour stairing at empty gates in all directions

How was DFW just voted Americas best large Airport?
When there are no gates open what do you want an airline to do? No manpower is a different and more legit beef.
Once the operation starts going south it literally snowballs (pun intended) and the choices left are usually poor.

Double Post

Interesting comments. Yes, it definitely seems to happen much more in the evening, but have had a few times earlier as well. Also, I have had times when we finally pull up, and there is no agent to open the door. Employees who work the evenings have the lowest seniority and have to deal with snowballing problems throughout the day that must make them victims of much verbal abuse. Wheelchairs are a terrible, terrible issue and are done by an outside company and the problem has existed for decades.. I'm sorry this developed into an AA rant, and I just contributed to it, but I appreciate the answers to my initial question which was if this happened in hubs of other airlines. An airline friend of mine said it was his opinion that the problem was that of poor gate management and ground movement coordination by the people up in the tower who are in charge of everything. Thanks again for the comments. Life goes on and we have to make the best of it.

DFW is my hometown airport and this happens almost so routinely it is comical.

The gate employees there at ANY time of the day are notoriously lazy and incompetent and the ramp people the same.

It never seems to happen with the frequency or regularity at other US airports.

Hey if given a chance fly WN to DAL. You’ll be in your car going home before the goofy AA employees even get you to the gate!

It does happen with AA at PHL, DCA and on 2 recent occasions CLT. We departed early, arrived early (oh boy, stats would look good!) but we sat on a remote stand for 39 minutes (PHL), 22 minutes (DCA) and CLT about 15 minutes each. An arrival in PHL last week the ground crew marshalled the plane in to the gate but no agent to extend the jetway for 15 minutes. And this was at 2pm.
In this quest to have "operational excellence" the basics are sometimes forgotten. At the end of the day, AA ends up with a lousy opinion or reputation for inconvenience and passengers hurrying through a busy airport to make their connecting flight.
In Philly, I was only inconvenienced by missing a train into the city by 30 minutes.

I'm going to swim upstream on this one. For an extremely frequent AA flyer into/out of DFW, I rarely run into this issue. But since I am O&D, I can't say I'm sweating a connection.

m2c.

texdravid wrote:

DFW is my hometown airport and this happens almost so routinely it is comical.

It got so bad before I gave up on AA that I would automatically jump up and head to the loo when the pilots would throttle back to start the decent before the fasten seat belt sign came on.
Generally that is 25min or so to gate time at most airports. DFW you were talking as much as 2 hours from start of decent to door open. Then having to stand in line for an additional hour to reschedule your missed flight. Standard answer while waiting on the taxiway "Looks like we surprised the ground crew" Gomer Pile always came to mind "Surprise, Surprise"

Just finally settled on WN as first choice. For lots of reasons and I have never heard "Looks like we surprised the ground crew"

Okie

In a previous life I worked for an American Eagle branded carrier flying the ERJ and my schedule for a summer month (I don’t remember which one) had evening arrivals into DFW each day of the trip. Each time we landed operations told us to go to the holding pad and wait for a gate. After 4 days straight of this I inquired as to why we never had a gate and was told “between 5-7 PM we have more arrivals than gate space.” Take this with a grain of salt but I went to the pad almost everyday for a month straight.

I have been flying in and out of MIA for the past 5 years and have only been delayed once when the plane arrived early and that was only 15 minutes. Of course the AA operation at MIA is smaller than the one at DFW.

Happens at ORD, DEN, LAX, etc. It is quite common to happen at large hubs whether it is AA, UA, DL, WN, AS, B6 and so on.

Most recently we got to wait for our gate at DEN, as the inbound flight from JAX was early. Upon landing the flight attendant was happy to inform us of how we were early... we ended up at the gate on time due to the wait.

It is not as easy to change gates as the inbound aircraft is scheduled to go elsewhere next. This means there are bags at that gate waiting for the next flight. Ground crew are in position to accept the aircraft (or should be), catering is already loaded to bring food for the next segment to that gate, fuel trucks have received information from dispatch on how much fuel is needed for the next flight, and so much more. Moving the passengers from one gate to another is probably the easiest thing to do when having to change gates

For the past 10 years I've been either Plat or Ex-Plat. Now it's down to one more day, and I'm not really bothered by it. For years I was extremely loyal to AA, and felt like they earned that loyalty. Those days are gone. Honestly, I think that can be said similarly for any airline. Yes, one may treat customers better and have a better experience, etc., but that will only drive so much loyalty. For 95% of passengers, it doesn't matter anyway.

For myself, and I'm sure several on this site, I paid extra to remain loyal and it was worthwhile. Today, I will still pay more for a ticket, but it's based on several factors, like connections, past hub experiences, aircraft type, etc. In situations where I do need to be more price-conscious, I'm definitely aware of connecting hubs, etc.

This is also very common at DCA with AA, especially if you aren't going in / out of Gate 35X. At least with DCA if you're sitting on the left side of the plane, you've got a scenic view of downtown DC as you're waiting in the penalty box on the north side of the airport.

Worst for me there was we arrived 10 min early, our gate was still occupied, and then a brief thunderstorm passed overhead, (understandably) closing the ramp. 5-10 minutes of rain led to 65 extra minutes sitting on the plane.

I now think the reason AA is frequently less expensive than DL on long-haul domestic US segments in F is that AA must discount for the "hub experience", esp. DFW and PHL. At least that's how it seems to me (currently DM on DL and EP on AA). I recall only one wait for a gate at ATL in 30 years of connecting there on DL. Very different experience at DFW and PHL on AA. Rarely connect at ORD or LAX.

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

DFW at night: America's worst run airport. .

Thanks for the eloquent explanation of why I prefer DAL to DFW.

LAX runs into this issue with probably all of its carriers...a lot of which has to do with the narrow alleys between terminals sometimes not allowing simultaneous departure and arrival taxiing/towing. On top of that, you also have the top 5 US carriers all running a hub there.

Also, with the hub and spoke model/banking...the banks of flights are getting so big that any type of IRROPS starts to back everything up and cause gate holds. At a lot of hubs, the gate capacity hasn't kept up with the amount of flights being scheduled at the same time. Airlines have been wanting to win at their hubs, so they add the flights right away, but the additional gates take years to go from concept to fruition.

It happens at every large airport everywhere in the world. The main difference in the US is that we don't use remote stands very often for overflow like you'd see at a place like Narita. But I have sat waiting for a gate *or* remote stand even there.

But generally, airplanes have assigned gates planned in advance; it's not an ad-hoc process like in a video game. That would just be chaos, and very inefficient. So if your plane arrives early, chances are you're going to need to wait for your gate - even if you see open ones, if you're waiting, that means the open ones are assigned to other flights due to arrive.

Like airplanes themselves, it's in the airlines' financial interests to keep gates in use and not just sitting there. Otherwise they're paying for gates they don't actually need. 10 gates at 60% usage is the same as 6 gates at 100% usage, so may as well just pay for 6 gates. At some airports, this isn't really a choice anyway because there just aren't enough gates to go around even if an airline did want more (which they often do).

Of course that means some planes will need to wait if they arrive early, but this shouldn't really be an issue - the airline never promised you that you'd walk off the plane early. It's a bigger issue if a delay happens to the plane occupying the gate - that can delay two planes, not just one, and in those cases the airline will try to shift things around. It's annoying when that happens, but in my experience actual delays due to waiting for a gate are rare. Sitting for a few minutes if you get there early is really common, though.

This happens at literally every hub airport, on every airline. The "AA is uniquely the worst airline in the world" thing has gotten comical.

slowrambler wrote:

This happens at literally every hub airport, on every airline. The "AA is uniquely the worst airline in the world" thing has gotten comical.

Perhaps, but perception is reality to these customers. And if they are representative samples of AA's traffic flow through DFW, then it has a significant problem. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it.

I don't have horse in this race, so please don't flame me.

Okie wrote:

texdravid wrote:

DFW is my hometown airport and this happens almost so routinely it is comical.

It got so bad before I gave up on AA that I would automatically jump up and head to the loo when the pilots would throttle back to start the decent before the fasten seat belt sign came on.
Generally that is 25min or so to gate time at most airports. DFW you were talking as much as 2 hours from start of decent to door open. Then having to stand in line for an additional hour to reschedule your missed flight. Standard answer while waiting on the taxiway "Looks like we surprised the ground crew" Gomer Pile always came to mind "Surprise, Surprise"

Just finally settled on WN as first choice. For lots of reasons and I have never heard "Looks like we surprised the ground crew"

Okie

My WN flight from MCI arrived at DAL about 15-20 minutes early on Sunday afternoon, but we had to wait a bit for an outbound flight to leave the gate before we were able to get to our gate. But, usually, it's never been an issue on WN either at DAL or other cities, for that matter.

picarus wrote:

Perhaps, but perception is reality to these customers. And if they are representative samples of AA's traffic flow through DFW, then it has a significant problem. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it.

The only way to get a representative sample is to actually get the statistics. People venting their spleens on an internet message board are almost by definition not a representative sample.

I can easily imagine that perception may be different at DFW - my experience at ORD is that if your gate is occupied, you'll be taken on a nice leisurely taxi around the airport and be made to feel like the plane is doing something useful, while at DFW you tend to sit within eyesight of your gate.

ytib wrote:

Happens at ORD, DEN, LAX, etc. It is quite common to happen at large hubs whether it is AA, UA, DL, WN, AS, B6 and so on.

Most recently we got to wait for our gate at DEN, as the inbound flight from JAX was early. Upon landing the flight attendant was happy to inform us of how we were early... we ended up at the gate on time due to the wait.

It is not as easy to change gates as the inbound aircraft is scheduled to go elsewhere next. This means there are bags at that gate waiting for the next flight. Ground crew are in position to accept the aircraft (or should be), catering is already loaded to bring food for the next segment to that gate, fuel trucks have received information from dispatch on how much fuel is needed for the next flight, and so much more. Moving the passengers from one gate to another is probably the easiest thing to do when having to change gates

This is the answer to what I was asking initially. I know it’s a complicated process.

This is my #1 DFW peeve. I have missed 3 international connections in the last 4 months at DFW due to this issue. Last week, my flight was already 40 minutes late and then we had to wait another 25 for gate - very annoying. Missed my connection to LHR and ended up at my destination six hours late. I have decided to just stop booking international connections through DFW. Gate holds happen at other airports - I have had them at LAX, CLT, and MIA as well - but they seem to be more severe at DFW.

Waiting for a gate to free up, or for the ground crew to show up, is half the fun... The other half is waiting for checked bags (*) to be unloaded... A truly fun day is when you get all three in a single trip! Saturday night at DFW seems to be the luckiest time to fly in. Adds 2 hours to the trip easily.

(*) Yes, I know, however checking it in sometimes is an unavoidable unpleasantness.

As much as I like DFW for the hub experience, I have had trouble with waiting for a gate with AA multiple times, thankfully I had long enough connections where I didn't have to worry about making a flight. Happens with all airlines at all hubs, but seems to affect AA more because on UA and DL they seem to quickly come up with an empty gate somewhere. Doesn't matter on AA, if you're three hours early you'll wait three hours for that particular gate to open up (exaggeration but not far from the truth).

As a pilot, I never make a PA about being early because I know it could all be blown on the ground.

As for DFW...bad horseshoe setup with an interstate running through the middle isnt as streamlined as ATL. Swapping gates requires it to be in same horseshoe...narrowing options.

DFW ORD LAX JFK are relics from another era with multiple, odd shaped terminals. I know ORD is doing something about it. JFK supposedly is doing something about it (dont hold your breath) DFW had a couple
of options open for its future...I think it doubled down on the horseshoes

I had four flights where my time in the air was shorter than the time we spent on the ground sitting and waiting for a gate. Painful

I have had to wait at ATL before right in front of the gate. They rolled us into one of the ramps but they had to wait for the aircraft to roll off the gate before we entered. I feel like at ATL, tell me if I’m wrong, they more or less have their act together. I think the super efficient terminal/ramp layout helps too. But the bag handling especially on Delta is really fast.

Are any of you involved in stand / gate planning? It is very easy to look at any big airport and think it must be easy after 15 years as a Stand Planner I have to tell you it is not. You have to build buffer between flights but these are used up when things are late or early.

My opinion is gates need to be shared among different airlines. Look at foreign countries. Usually gates are not specific to a certain carrier.

The only way to get a representative sample is to actually get the statistics. People venting their spleens on an internet message board are almost by definition not a representative sample.

I can easily imagine that perception may be different at DFW - my experience at ORD is that if your gate is occupied, you'll be taken on a nice leisurely taxi around the airport and be made to feel like the plane is doing something useful, while at DFW you tend to sit within eyesight of your gate.[/quote]

And that’s why I included the word ‘if’ — never said it was a representative sample, but thanks for the statistics lesson anyway

This has frustrated me for many years. I’m not loyal to a particular carrier so I’m certain this happens across the board at all kinds of airports. Delta at KSFO my most recent. What is particularly lame is when the pilot proudly announces they are running ahead of schedule and will get to the destination on time or early...perhaps a second announcement of the same later during the flight..but alas there is no gate. Of course not!

How is it that, as a passenger, I can predict this will happen but the pilot always sounds surprised?

A friend of mine who flies for AA used to say that 20 minutes early equals 10 minutes late. That was back in the 1990s and early 2000s, before AA went to the rolling hub operation. I remember arriving at ORD on AA in that time frame and, if the gate was still occupied, either taxiing around the airport (because all of the hold pads were full due to ground stops), sitting out by the end of what is now 28R (this was when it was 27L and often used for arrivals), or going and sitting on UA's hold pad by Concourse C.

When AA went to the rolling hubs at all of its hubs, my friend found the number of times that he had to wait for a gate at ORD, DFW, and MIA declined, a lot.

My in-laws used to live in the metro Atlanta area, and it did happen with DL from time to time.

UA also does this at ORD. Back when non-passengers could go beyond security, I used to meet my girlfriend (now wife) flying in on UA. There were a number of times when I saw UA planes sitting on the hold pad by Concourse C. As a plane started to push back, a plane on the pad would start to taxi.

Some people joke that getting in early at ORD isn't the problem today that it was 20 years ago, because of the runway at the north end of the field. The taxi in is 20 to 30 minutes. So, if a plane lands 20+ minutes early, it will lose that time simply taxiing in.

texdravid wrote:

DFW is my hometown airport and this happens almost so routinely it is comical.

The gate employees there at ANY time of the day are notoriously lazy and incompetent and the ramp people the same.

It never seems to happen with the frequency or regularity at other US airports.

Hey if given a chance fly WN to DAL. You’ll be in your car going home before the goofy AA employees even get you to the gate!

Well those AA Fleet Service folks are making $30 an hour. I wouldn’t expect much out of them.

I think many airports (esp older ones) have to deal with ramp congestion as a way of life. Also, you can't really compare wait times between "normal" ops and IROPS. I suppose the only way to try to get an accurate (non anecdotal) picture of where wait times are the worst is to compare ON vs. IN times over a long period of time and perhaps by hour of the day. If that data is publicly available, it wold be an interesting analysis.

slowrambler wrote:

This happens at literally every hub airport, on every airline. The "AA is uniquely the worst airline in the world" thing has gotten comical.

It happens at non-hub airports too. Some of my longest gate waits on DL have been at RDU and ORD (which is a hub for others, but not DL). Things do appear to be getting better at RDU since DL in-sourced the ramp.

AMALH747430 wrote:

While it has happened occasionally at DEN and IAH (the other two airports I connect through) it has been a one-off thing.

Happens everyday at IAH for the 6pm departure bank. Arrivals begin to show up about 20 minutes before the departures start pushing, so there are constantly planes held-out.