For this reason alone, many 14 CFR 121 air carriers choose not train on circling approaches below the OpsSpec standard circling minimums of 1000-3 and further prohibit circling approaches at night.
@rbp at expressjet our ATP certificates earned through upgrading has the limitations "ATP CIRC. APCH - VMC ONLY" and "EMB-145 CIRC APCH - VMC ONLY"
if you want to see air carriers circling, go sit somewhere you can see runway 29 @ EWR on a day with strong winds from the west
22L circle 29 and 4R circle 29 were common on those days
and everyone from the turboprops to Kalita's 747 would circle. some of the 777 would hold out on the straight in until the winds got exceptionally bad though
that also lead to the infamous among EWR crews CAL 757 landing on taxiway Z instead of 29.
pretty sure I flew a circle to land into montrose, CO as well, but its been a long time. I know EWR is not the only place I've done it in a transport category airplane
though not always. I heard colgan one day "Colgan 1234, follow the expressjet ahead of you to 22R/W, you are 48 for departure, monitor tower passing K"
ground taxis them over to 29 and they are the first airplane lined up for 29. "Colgan 1234, monitor tower you are #48 for departure"
:)
@rbp TEB, EWR, LGA, JFK and friends all share the same departure fixes and when they say "aircraft over WHITE are limited to 10/hour" then that 1 departure every 6 minutes gets spread across everyone at all of the NYC airports
some of my favorite times at EWR were the absolute worst days
flow so backed up that clearance delivery is metering pushbacks and calling engine starts
the deice pad in full swing
going north over GREKI during the evening international push and being last in sequence always
oh, the EWR-YYT flight. long, always at night. YQX is your only real shot at an alternate. 40 kt winds in freezing fog was not abnormal during approach and landing. Also fun being the only airplane descending while everyone else is getting handed off to oceanic for the NAT crossing
@rbp I don't know about the preference. I made that change to avoid repeating same words repetitively in a single sentence. You can change it back if you don't like it.
@Farhan I like the question and your answer provides a great overview, but it does seem very broad. Breaking it into multiple questions may be a good idea.