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.

FMI: www.ohare.com/ohare/home.asp