Originally Posted by
Dave Gittins
They are not telling you it will be on time, they are saying they are PLANNING for it to be on time and at the second they wrote the message did not know of anything to delay it. The reality is that about 1001 things can change.
BTW what do you consider as being "on time", pushing back ? getting airborne ? or being within 30 minutes of one of those ?
The published scheduled times are pushback from stand and arrival on stand. It does not include taxi times and holding in a queue for take-off which at busier airports during peak times can be anything up to 20 or 30 minutes. Some airlines deliberately publish scheduled times for departure and arrivals well in excess of the flying and taxi times it actually takes in practice which I suppose improves their punctuality statistics !