Originally Posted by
hans brinker
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getting airborne, and that is why we can "beat the system", meaning, we can get better on time performance than the outdated data would give., because the system isn't updated with the actual info.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...
Hans, I think you're missing the point. CI was never intended to be used as an on-time departure/arrival tool. It's a designed tool to enable the cheapest way to operate the aircraft per flight hour when comparing a company's direct operating costs to fuel related cost. Adjusting the CI to enable better on time performance is like using chopsticks to eat soup, it might look like its working occasionally but you aint getting much soup.
Try the RTA function on the progress page if you want the best on time.