Recently we were speaking to some controllers and pilots about the different ways that you can push an aircraft back, and a lot of the other controllers were unaware that you could use some of the other ways detailed below. We also wanted to clear up what these pushback instructions mean for new pilots as well as they can seem a bit confusing.
We will only be looking at non-conditional pushbacks. Obviously the same can be done with conditional pushbacks as well.
Normal pushback
Typically at an airport, you will request push and start and the controller will tell you
“BAW123 stand 15 push and start approved face east”
And this is what we call the standard way as the aircraft will move backward from the stand, and will then turn to face a different direction
Push abeam
Sometimes due to spatial constraints, you will be told to push abeam a stand. This means that you push off of your current stand and keep pushing until you are next to the specified stand. A note for controllers should be that this is not possible if the pilot uses GSX.
In the example below, the line represents where a pilot would push if he was instructed to push abeam stand 532
Push into stand
Sometimes when the aircraft will be ready to push but the area the aircraft is in is busy, or if it needs to clear a stand and wait to conform to a slot time then the controller may want an aircraft to push into a stand
In the example below, the red line denotes when an aircraft was told to push from stand 54 into stand 101
Are there any other ways that you would give pushback instructions? Or have you had any experiences with these types of pushbacks? Feel free to comment below or open a topic in the forums here
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