Air carrier departure from acy voiced concern regarding ATC's denial for an opposite direction depar...

Narrative:

Taxing out we requested to depart runway 31 due to a large thunderstorm directly off the end of runway 13. Acy ground control denied our request due to inbound traffic. We monitored acy approach frequencies prior to and for several minutes after we were outside their airspace. We saw their traffic on our TCAS displays. Acy could have easily departed us on runway 31 without giving any inbound aircraft (the one they had) delays and would have made our departure extremely safer than making an immediate left hand turn once airborne. We specifically requested runway 31 for departure for safety of our flight. It was obvious to us and I am sure to the tower personnel that a departure off runway 13 would put aircraft in a dangerous position. We showed cloud to ground lightning and heavy rain showers just off the departure end but were looking at VFR conditions off runway 31 end. This was a poor and unsafe operation by acy tower personnel.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier departure from ACY voiced concern regarding ATC's denial for an opposite direction departure because of weather activity off the departure end of the runway; reporter alleging traffic volume was minimal.

Narrative: Taxing out we requested to depart Runway 31 due to a large thunderstorm directly off the end of Runway 13. ACY Ground Control denied our request due to inbound traffic. We monitored ACY Approach frequencies prior to and for several minutes after we were outside their airspace. We saw their traffic on our TCAS displays. ACY could have easily departed us on Runway 31 without giving any inbound aircraft (the one they had) delays and would have made our departure extremely safer than making an immediate left hand turn once airborne. We specifically requested Runway 31 for departure for safety of our flight. It was obvious to us and I am sure to the Tower personnel that a departure off Runway 13 would put aircraft in a dangerous position. We showed cloud to ground lightning and heavy rain showers just off the departure end but were looking at VFR conditions off Runway 31 end. This was a poor and unsafe operation by ACY Tower personnel.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	849748
Time
Date	200908
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Place
Locale Reference	ACY.Airport
State Reference	NJ
Environment
Flight Conditions	Marginal
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Commercial Fixed Wing
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Takeoff
Route In Use	Vectors
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Flight Instructor Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 47 Flight Crew Total 3600 Flight Crew Type 1300
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types

Air carrier departure from acy voiced concern regarding ATC's denial for an opposite direction departure because of weather activity off the departure end of the runway; reporter alleging traffic volume was minimal.