The points 1-5 made by Your Splitter are spot on.
5. Yes Ops must delay your ongoing flightplan but as always this requires good clear information. Not always easy especially for us smaller boys without ACARS or flight tracing. For example if you have a slot delay for the first departure of the day, and we delay all your subsequent flightplans, then your first slot gets cancelled and off you go on your merry way....well you can imagine. We have to cancel all the delayed plans and refile, now they count as late filed, which means end of the queue when any other slots are dished out. Also if your ETA has you inbound at say 1020 and you have an outbound slot of 1055 what do we do. If we delay to give you more time you lose your place in the queue and could end up with a 1300 slot! Imagine you hold for 10 mins. By the time we realise your now on the ground and trying to turn round you have only thrity minutes. Its juggling guys and yes sometimes balls get dropped. If its tight then talk to each other to see what can be done.
This is a key point when an unrealistic slot is held for the outbound.
Most airlines attempt to undercut ground times when delayed and do not want to risk delaying a
potentially achievable slot that would extend the ground time further.
Shorthall Airlines also rely on receiving movement messages ASAP after flights are airbourne.
If the Airline Ops do not have an accurate ETA, the chances of the "ball being dropped" are obviously increased.
As for filing flight plans early, a big no no.
