Today I was flying from AUS to IAH on a United Express E175. I landed in IAH and contacted ground as instructed. I requested taxi to the Terminal B Gate B26. He didn’t seem to notice it so I requested it again a minute or two later. This time he answered and I was met up with this.
(I took this after the taxi)
To clarify, when I requested taxi to my stand, I was on the parallel taxiway past the exit, with my nose facing east. This taxi path seemed very weird to me, since I had to practically make a 180 on the taxiway, which already is unrealistic. Then I had to hold short of the runway directly opposite to a line of departing aircraft. I don’t understand why he didn’t tell me to taxi via the eastern taxiways, since that was what he was doing to every other aircraft.
I ended up using pushback to get to the exit behind me, then turned right from there. I taxied to the hold short point, and got lucky since there was only a BA 777 in line for departure. I crossed the runway soon after and taxied to gate.
This seemed really weird to me, could anyone explain why that happened?
Also one thing I noticed about the IAH Terminal B: It is supposed to be an United Express hub, but in IF there are only 2 (or 3, can’t remember) gates to accomodate the E175. Is this a bug, a mistake in develoment or just supposed to be like that? I would be grateful for the info.