re: La Guardia (NYC) issues Ground Stop **Traffic Management Program w/ 41 min delay**

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Okay so a flight at 10:30 am is delayed by 40 minutes. That airplane is going to fly 2-6 more flights by the end of the day. All of those flights are also delayed. The airports that all those airplanes fly to also have to deal with delayed flights that don't fit into their plan for the day. You know nothing about aircraft routing.

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Yes!

Not only that, but it's the average delay which means several are going to be longer and as the day goes on, they're going to grow longer. As the delays grow, aircraft are out of position which can affect preventative maintenance programs. This is not to mention that pilots continue to add time to their duty period waiting around airports for their delayed flight which will eventually start to cancel flights.

Before people think "Who cares? Cancel all of the flights to New York!" understand that the pilots who are delayed flying to LGA will also delay their next leg to Chicago, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Birmingham, etc. Pilots who spent last night in LGA are supposed to fly flights to South Bend, Baton Rouge, Jacksonville, Charleston, etc today. This will lead to flight crews and aircraft not being in position tonight to fly tomorrow, meaning the cumulative effect can be felt far and wide. Commercial, private and cargo flying is affected.

Don't even get me started on what can happen if the 2,000+ controllers eligible for retirement decide enough is enough and just don't show up to work next week. It takes about 2-3 years to replace one in a program with a 50% fail rate that graduates 500 people in a good year.

Yeah, let's create unsafe flying conditions and grind the airspace to a halt because we can't build a piece if a wall that does nothing except stroke Donnie's ego...