Airport Officials Turn Aircraft Away, Saying There's No Room To
Taxi
No, sir. They just can't do it.
Officials at Chicago's O'Hare have been trying to find a way to
accommodate Airbus's giant A340-600 stretch, given the airport's
older taxiway system. The plane is too big or the taxiways or too
small.
With a wingspan of more than 208-feet and a length of
246-feet-11-inches, the A380-600 is only slightly smaller than the
Boeing 747-400. The way the taxiways are built at O'Hare, an A380
would be hard pressed to safely pass a 747 or even a 777 without
dropping off the edge of the tarmac.
"We have listed about 30 spots where we don't want this airplane
to turn on the airfield because of concern the landing gear could
end up in mud or grass," said FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro, in an
interview with the Chicago Tribune. "We have to make sure all the
safety issues are taken care of. The city still has to work through
some issues regarding the airport fire station and aircraft towing"
to recover a plane that rolls off the pavement, he said.
Then there are new procedures that any airport must learn in
handling a different aircraft type. The A340-600 has one more exit
than smaller versions of the Airbus aircraft. They'll also have to
figure out how to evacuate the aircraft -- whether it's stuck in
the mud or encounters some other emergency -- by using portable
staircases mounted on trucks.
And then there's the behemoth A380. O'Hare faces the same
problems that other airports from New York to Paris and Frankfurt
are trying to handle -- accommodating an aircraft that carries up
to 850 passengers on two decks.
Of course, this being Chicago, the issue has become a political
one. Mayor Richard Daley, scourge of general aviation, is pushing
the FAA to accept his $15 billion plan for revamping O'Hare.
Under the plan, O'Hare would build Runway 10 Center, long enough
and wide enough to accommodate the A380. It would also reinforce
the elevated taxiway over a local highway. Then there are the new
jet bridge requirements for a double-decker passenger plane, as
well as terminal accommodations for the hundreds of passengers
arriving and departing with each flight.
But for now, O'Hare can't even accommodate the A380's little
sister. Lufthansa and Iberia Airlines have been talking with
airport officials about landing their A340-600s in Chicago. That
service was supposed to have started October 5th. But because of
concerns about the stretch Airbus's ability to handle the tight
taxiways and other logistical concerns, not one A340-600 has landed
at O'Hare yet.
The FAA, while not going so far as to ban the A340-600 from
O'Hare, has offered controllers amnesty if one should slip off the
taxiway. FAA managers are concerned. The amnesty would apply if an
A340-600 "should inadvertently miss a taxiway or become disabled
due to the aircraft's limitations," said an FAA letter to the
controllers union.
This, after a city-commissioned study on 500 turns along various
taxiway routes between the terminal and the runway. At 30 of those
turns, consulting firm Ricondo & Associates found an A340-600
pilot might be able to make the required maneuver "with reduced
safety margins to the edge of the pavement."
That's if the turns could be made at all, according to an FAA
white paper following the consultants report. "Of these studied
turns, both the impossible and highly complex turns were assumed to
be ill advised," according to the FAA document.