Why is my plane circling before landing? Holding patterns explained

If your plane flies in loops before landing, it's almost certainly in a holding pattern: air traffic control has asked the pilots to wait in a set area of sky until they can continue to the airport. Controllers use holds for several reasons, most often weather getting worse at the airport or heavy traffic. It's routine, and the pilots are given a time when they can expect to continue.

What a holding pattern is

A hold keeps the plane within a defined area while it waits for clearance to continue. From the ground, or on a map, it looks like a racetrack: two straight legs joined by two turns.

• Shape. The standard pattern uses right turns; some holds use left turns.
• Size. On the inbound straight leg, a hold lasts 1 minute at or below 14,000 feet and 1½ minutes above 14,000 feet, plus the turns. Maximum speeds are set so the pattern stays within protected airspace.

Why controllers put you in a hold

• Weather at the destination. Worsening weather reduces how many planes can land per hour, so arrivals have to be spaced out.
• Heavy traffic. More arrivals than the airport can accept at that moment.
• After a missed approach. If a landing attempt is abandoned, the plane may hold before trying again.

How long will it last?

When controllers expect a delay, they give the pilots holding instructions ahead of time, including an expect further clearance time: when the pilots can expect to be cleared onward. It can change if conditions improve or get worse.

Long delays are usually handled on the ground instead. When the FAA expects an airport to be short of capacity for a longer period, it uses a ground delay program, holding flights at their departure airports specifically to limit airborne holding. See ground stop vs. ground delay.

What it means for your arrival

A hold adds time the schedule may not have included, so your arrival can slip even if you took off on time. If you have a tight connection, read what happens if you miss a connection.

Holding and offline tracking

A holding pattern is exactly the situation where a flight's position is hardest to predict from a schedule. FlyingOver doesn't use GPS: without Wi-Fi it estimates your position from the saved route and schedule, so during a long hold the estimate can run ahead of where you really are. Once you're connected again, it corrects with live data.