KRNO Fly IN

[David Spackman]

HI All

Recently did the KRNO fly in. Just have a question for the senior controllers. The event was very well attended and my flight along with a number of others was from KDEN to KRNO. Flight time was 1 hour 52 mins and i carried about 5 hours of fuel.

The first part of the flight was fine but then arrived at Battle Mountain VOR and was told due to congestion at KRNO the hold time would be about 25 mins. This was done and then I was eventually cleared to KRNO via the MYBAD2 Arrival

This proceeded but then due to further congestion I was radar vectored around KRNO for some considerable time.

I did inform the Centre Controller that fuel was about 1 hour remaining and there were a number of other aircraft coming in from the East that were also low on fuel.

Eventually i was given vectors for final approach and then handed over to KRNO Approach Control. I was still at 18,000 feet and when queried it was told by Approach that the airport was unable to take any traffic and there was no estimate of when this was available. I told Approach that I had 25 mins of fuel remaining but was informed there was nothing they could do. Why did Centre hand me over to a situation that put the aircraft in an uncertain situation?

My question is what are the protocols for this situation. I would have thought it reasonable that priority would be given to those aircraft on low fuel to land first and others on a shorter leg would be held.

In the end I just logged off as had run out of options for an alternate.

Hopefully someone can give me a view.

This is the first time I have seen ATC overwhelmed by the volume. I usually fly on VACPAC.

Thanking you in anticipation

Dave

[Ryan Parry]

Hi David,

I'm sorry about the event and the delays that were present. Reno has a very tiny and limited airspace and we were doing the best we could to manage the large amounts of traffic all trying to come in at the same time. There were some coordination things we could have done better that may have made things run a bit more efficiently, but in the end there was simply too much traffic and some delay was inevitable.

In the future if we plan to have an event with Reno, we will also include a second airport and maybe even some flow procedures to make things run a bit smoother and cut down any delays.

I hope this does not deter you from flying with us again. We are having a Superbowl 50 event next month that should be a blast!

[Mark Hubbert]

I don't think that it could have been put any better.