Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Observation on Airport Operations

Last night, I sat on my balcony for a period of time and observed the Frankfurt Airport off in the distance.  I live around 25 km away....on a hillside...that gives me a 30-percent view of the runway.  So you can see as night approaches....the lights on planes present themselves as they land. 

In a typical 'normal' 20-minute period of observation, there would be a minimum of nine planes landing/taking off. 

Well, I sat for 20 minutes and counted.  A max of three planes took off or landed. That's it. 

That's peak time, when you'd expect the flow to be active (not the mid-morning or mid-afternoon).

The sound of planes in formation over my valley....in the take-off phase?  I used to hear probably twenty planes a day.  Now, I'm lucky if I hear three of them.

A return to normal in 2020?  I have my doubts.  A lot of news chatter suggests that the flight schedule out of Frankfurt will be lucky to hit the 50-percent point by the end of 2020. 

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