Looking at the FAA’s airport delay page, I came across this for PHX:
General Departure Delays: Due to OTHER:Noise Abatement, traffic is experiencing Gate Hold and Taxi delays between 46 minutes and 1 hour in length and increasing.
What’s the deal with that? I’ve never seen Noise Abatement as a departure delay reason before. Would the BCS game yesterday have anything to do with it?
They my have limited number of departures per hour allowed, in order to make nicey nice with the neighbors. And it may very well be due to noise.
Another thought is if a noise sensor was tripped maybe they have to delay the next departure for a set amount of time. I’m just pulling that one out my butt.
I’m sorry, I just couldn’t resist.
Tower: “TWA 2341, for noise abatement turn right 45 Degrees.”
TWA 2341: “Center, we are at 35,000 feet. How much noise can we make
up here?”
Tower: “Sir, have you ever heard the noise a 747 makes when it hits a
727?”
That may be it, especially with all the charters and such coming in for the game. Either way, it’s all back to normal now according to the FAA.
The departures require a/c to fly though a “gate.” Only so many a/c fit though that gate at any one time. Makes since to me; it’s no different then a flow control delay.
I don’t live super close to our airport but I am in the line of fire not long after takeoff. I can easily tell when the abatement time has kicked in, and when it’s lifted. But living in a very “military” city, I can tell you that enought F-15s woke me up this past Sunday morning that I almost smelled jet fuel in my house. My pillow was shaking.
lol <— that was for cfijames 
The National Guard runs sorti’s (sp?) every day but this past Sunday was unusual, something was up.