Does anyone know how they plan to handle unused slots? Is there a way to hold in case someone doesn’t show up for their slot?
Just looking at my 1 hour flight vs. 4 hour drive vs. 6 hours by public transport, and even with a 1 hour hold, I’d like to fly.
AFAICT the slots at EDNY were never real slots. It was just a scheme to control the traffic density. You could arrive well outside the slot, say 1hr outside (empirically) and nothing was said. I’ve also not heard of anyone being refused a landing due to being outside the slot.
A bit like a fair usage policy on a fibre connection to stop people downloading terabytes of 4K p0rn movies every month 
If you have a slot, then fly If you haven’t, then on past experience the EDNY tower will SUSP your flight plan, and they will do it just before EOBT, for maximum “punishment effect”… AND make sure your filed ETA is within the slot, otherwise you will again get a SUSP.
IMHO, unused slots are just wasted.
How many are going?
The restaurant is booked for Friday evening 7pm local time.
Silence here so booking will be based on who has turned up and confirmed in the telegram group We will have a nice dinner.
I am on my way, via LDLO for 2 days. Planning to arrive EDNY Friday 11:40 – 12:00 UTC. Just got a CTOT due to French industrial action 😂 so back to the good old days. Despite doing a VFR departure EGKA-XORBI…
My visit is unlikely now, with rain and max 13 degrees on Sarurday.
Today (Friday) is CAVOK all day.
Might rain a bit tomorrow but that’s OK; we are mostly indoors.
Dinner tonight, Felders, 7pm
Peter wrote:
AFAICT the slots at EDNY were never real slots. It was just a scheme to control the traffic density.
I got word at Aero that the reason for the few slots was that EDNY ATC planned with being one controller short because of Covid-19. That seems to agree with your observation, provided they were actually fully staffed at the time.
I was also told there was “mayhem” at EDNY on Tuesday evening. I can understand that as lots of people would plan to arrive then without needing slots (and also exhibitors).
(I would also have arrived on Tuesday evening but didn’t get further than Hannover due to weather so I had to go to the “reliever airport” Leutkirch EDNL the next day instead. There were two aircraft from my club and the other pilots all had <100 hrs with no international flying experience. I was coaching them and couldn’t use my IR as that would have meant leaving one aircraft behind.)
It was a great meet-up. A really nice group for the Friday evening dinner.
Wx was very good, except Saturday when it rained a fair bit, but Friday and Sunday were perfect. My return flight today, back home, was totally VMC at FL090, except, you’ve guessed it, a bit at the UK end Got some extremely unusual shortcuts too
I will do a separate writeup because I went to Croatia before Germany.
Airborne_Again wrote:
I was also told there was “mayhem” at EDNY on Tuesday evening. I can understand that as lots of people would plan to arrive then without needing slots (and also exhibitors).
I arrived in EDNY Tuesday evening/night and it was very quiet. I didn’t even decide to go to Aero until after lunch, when the weather started clearing up, and I thought “hey, I don’t need a slot on Tuesday!” No problem getting in and getting parked.
My flight back on Thursday morning was magical – took off about 0630 and I think I was the only aircraft in the sky between EDNY and LSGL where I flew. Unfortunately, I arrived about 45 mins earlier than the LSGL guys wanted to see me, so I flew around a bit in the totally still, calm, cool air. Really nice flight!
I’ll bet if you had just showed up without a slot you’d get in without difficulty.
I’ll bet if you had just showed up without a slot you’d get in without difficulty.
I’ve read a report that EDNY tower was doing what they did in previous years: cancel any FP whose ETA is not within the purchased slot.
I wasn’t going to test it, yet again (it is very inconvenient because EDNY goes for “maximum punishment” and issues the SUSP only minutes before EOBT so you have little opportunity to cancel and re-file) so I used the AR to develop the route and then used EuroFPL to file the FP, with an EET hacked (there is a +/- 1.5x or so leeway in the Eurocontrol validation) to place the ETA in the middle of the slot. The AR does not allow you to do that, other than by adjusting EOBT.
You were lucky with the wx. I was going to fly out Monday (4 days in Croatia before EDNY) and the convective wx was all over mainland Europe and the Alps, on Monday and Tuesday.
