Quote:
Originally Posted by calgarygeologist
I thought that central de icing would be the preferred method until I flew out of an airport that had such a facility this winter. Central de-icing wasn't any quicker or efficient. It actually seemed to take longer because there was more stopping and waiting. We were pushed back from the gate but had to wait on the pad for quite a while. Then we started to taxi towards the facility but we had to hold twice to allow other aircrafts to proceed. Finally at the de-icing facility we seemed to have a lower proirity in a smaller aircraft as larger planes proceeded before us. Maybe that was just a uniquely bad experience but it seemed to take forever and the system in Calgary seemed better.
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Issue for us was the aircraft on our gate pushed on time but then had to deice before leaving the gate. Then the trucks came in to sweep up the fluid. All this time our aircraft was waiting to get onto the gate so it could get turned around and we could leave. So despite our plan arriving on time (it began the day elsewhere) and the flight ahead of us that was using our gate actually pushing back on time we ended up being about 30 minutes late leaving due to the deicing. Had the first AC been able to push and go to a central facility our AC could have gated on time, turned around, and departed on time.