I noticed earlier this afternoon a strange lack of traffic on the ORD Kokomo approach, but didn’t think of it until I noticed several flights from CVG filing for the Bradford approach after overflying STL. (see THIS flight).
Andbody know if something was up?
Edided because I relized the flight I linked to was a few days old- but still?
WOW! That sure is a round-a-bout way of getting there! It’s interesting to note that that flight (which appears to be a daily flight) did not fly the next day.
A few hours later (on the same day), UAL 357 from BWI to ORD flew its usual route which includes the KNOX3 arrival which is similar to the KOKOMO1. It did make a detour for spacing though:
flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL3 … /KBWI/KORD
But on the following day it flew a strange route:
flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL3 … /KBWI/KORD
I did some more checking and think it must of been due to weather- there were some strong storms over Indiana yesterday. I noticed the unusual routing when looking at the IFR route analysis for another post, and was suprised to se several flights filing for the BDF4 approach. Didn’t think of the storms until later.
Storms were the first thing that came to my mind too, but then I thought, “Why didn’t they just hold on the ground until after they passed instead of flying for 3 hours out of their way?” Then I realized the time of departure, so I guess they had to get out of there ahead of noise restrictions or don’t go at all?