JFK 4L closed due to TURTLES

[T-Bird76]

Now why the need to blame the FAA over this?

Wildlife management isn't the FAA's responsibility at the airport; it is up to Port...and if it was managed properly, 80 turtles wouldn't have been found on a runway all at once.

Who said it was the FAA's responsibility? The Wildlife folks are always on partrol at JFK and these turtle wouldn't have been seen until they came onto the runway, taxiway or roadway because they easily blend into the grass. How many airports around the U.S are also a protected nature perserve? That's a fine balance to manage and they do a pretty good job.

[bluejuice]

Gee All this over turtles, What a rucus I caused. Seriously ,the problem arose when the port Changed runways during the AM push. Usually at around 9 AM taxi times run about 30-50 minutes on a normal quiet day. You stop departures for as little as 10 minutes to remove a couple of turtles and BANG youve started to create a major delay. You then take your normal daily departures and continue to feed into the stopped line and then do a runway change and you end up easily with 40-50 A/C as we did,waiting to either depart or get to the gate. It became so gridlocked we had an IAT arrival wait about 30 minutes to get cleared off the taxiway. We didnt see departures return to normal till about 1130.

[T-Bird76]

Seriously ,the problem arose when the port Changed runways during the AM push.

Port does not and did not change runways....ATC changed the runways agains Ports request. Get your facts straight