To my knowledge Ryanair have covered their arses with well padded scheduled block times for years. Interestingly, as a comparison, the airline I fly short haul regularly with (Eurowings) don't. Their scheduled block times are relatively tight. Their turnaround times are also very tight. Consequently, any delay picked up (for whatever valid reason) tends to remain, or even get further exacerbated, as the day progresses. If, on its last rotation, the aircraft can't get back into the DUS base by midnight, it requires a diversion to CGN. Not withstanding the inconvenience to pax (been there and got the t-shirt), it means the aircraft has to be of course positioned back to DUS the next morning. Eurowings have recently come in for quite a lot of criticism from their German clients because of their poor time keeping. In the end, their quest to maximise aircraft utilisation in the interest of economics works against them. Incidentally, just for the record, I'm talking about substantial delays and not 3 minutes!
