I know alot of the IFATC says that both runways are used to increase efficiency but it really doesn’t increase efficiency in fact it decreases efficiency. Here is why IRL LHR uses 1 runway for Departures and 1 for Arrivals. When using both runways yes it is efficient for the Arrivals but it is very tedious for departures because then the departures have to hold short of the runway because of to many landings on the departures runways and it is very unorganized but if you use 1 runway for landings then ur not having so many pilots lined up on the hold short line waiting like 10 minutes to depart + the 5-10 minutes it takes to taxi through all the mess
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Hi @Luu and i did that last year i think on Training Server and it didn’t went well because you need both runways for the amount of traffic. I still know what happend back then all the departing traffic was lined up back till to the Gates so new pilit we’re not able to push back so we quickly needed to change that all the pilots departet from both runways that also fixed the problem and we had again enough room for pushbacks
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It really depends on traffic, when there is a flyout why not use both runways for a departure, we want as many planes as quickly as possible to get into the air. The opposite for a fly in.
As ATC we are told to use all available runways possible, however it’s up to the individual controller how they lay out the runways. Realism is a factor but also traffic and what kind.
Hope this answers your question, if you have any more questions or interested in the way local controllers operate you can read the ATC manual :)
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We encourage controllers to utilize all available runways. This is because it solves a lot of efficiency issues.
At Heathrow, one controller isn’t responsible for every arrival on an approach frequency, or every runway on a tower frequency, or the entire airport on ground. The traffic level controllers handle are not comparable to real life. This is why realism is sacrificed for a more efficient service.
Yes, departures will be faster with one runway for each but that creates another issue. Arrivals are now having to do holds and get large vector patterns to get to that one runway, so a 10 minute approach turns into a 30 minute approach.
In my opinion, arrivals should have priority as it is much easier to control aircraft on the ground than it is in the air.
Now, if controllers are experienced enough or comfortable with realism, they can go for it and control how they please, but everyone should know their limits.
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