Mr Allan said he understood the airline wanted each aircraft to fly four legs a day and this was contingent on a 25-minute turnaround.
To realise 25 minute turnarounds with a pax number above about 75%, EVERYTHING needs to be precisely co-ordinated - APU or ground power operational and available; the aerobridge to be positioned within a couple of minutes of block in; ground staff waiting; refuellers ready to hook up (and not delayed elsewhere; no aircraft defects that have arisen on the preceding sector, and are likely to delay boarding.
These are SOME of considerations.
By far and away though, imho, the single BIGGEST factor that affects turnaround times are the SLF.
Elderly pax, pax travelling with children, disabled passengers, wheelchair pax, passengers who are just plain slow, will each add extra time, and with flights running at close to max seating capacity I have experienced times in the order of 17 minutes, or thereabouts, for de-planing ONLY.
With flights operating over meal periods, the containers left behind from carry-on food and drinks can treble the cleaning time of the F/A's.
"We can do less than 30 minutes and we have done even less than 25," Mr Huttner said. "But we focus on 30 to allow a reasonable amount of time to look after the wellbeing of our staff and guests." This is far more realistic, from my experience - the 5 minutes makes ALL the difference between an on time pushback, and incurring a chain of delays that then affect ALL following services.