Originally Posted by
old,not bold
About once a fortnight, during the time of my life when I was responsible for the ground handling of our airline as well as others we handled at a busy Middle East airport, I would go into a quiet room somewhere and pray to God (in all her various forms) to spare us from gung-ho Captains who just loved to be able to say the their admiring passengers; ".....and we are going to land 35 minutes ahead of schedule!" as though this was some kind of achievement. Early arrivals are often unavoidable, I know, but there's no point to striving for them. It disrupts everyone, including passengers, and frequently simply means sitting on a patch of tarmac, engines running, while a gate is cleared and passengers launch into their social media to complain about inefficiency. Handling equipment, and the staff to work it, are not an infinite resource.
It's a shame more people don't realise this.