Originally Posted by
Private jet
I don't understand the logic or benefit of arriving early, as you say. I have to conclude that in order to arrive on time you were receiving updated CI's from the airline via ACAR's? and hence just entered the updated number into the FMS. If not you were just guessing. If you want to arrive early, (for no good reason) why didn't you just push up the fixed cruise speed in the FMS? (which makes very little difference unless its a very long sector) Once again how is any of that "beating the system" ? unless of course it gives an airline Captain a bit of an erection or wetness.....
I will try to look past your past sentence, and answer again, but now in a way you might understand.
My company wants us to depart and arrive on time, not early, not late. Due to the schedule being built months ahead of time, the winds and average delays used to calculate block times are just that, average. On the actual day of departure, when the dispatcher prepares for our specific flight, about 2 hours before departure, he has much better info on the delays expected and the actual winds, and route changes due to weather. He will plan accordingly, and come up with a CI that in combination with the expected taxi times will give us an on time arrival. Not early, because the gate will be occupied, not late because of "on time performance numbers". Plenty of times, after getting an early off block, and shorter than expected taxi, it turns out we would get in very early if we fly at that planned high CI, so I get in touch with dispatch, and we adjust it. The reverse is also true. That is why I said it would be nice if the CI would be automatically updated after getting airborne, and that is why we can "beat the system", meaning, we can get better on time performance than the outdated data would give., because the system isn't updated with the actual info. I would not get any updated CI if I didn't request them. And it isn't exactly guessing to bring down/up the CI till you see a landing time that when you add the scheduled taxi time gives you the on time arrival time. Not rocket science. And definitely not something that would get me exited...