On Time Performance
Hi all.
This may seem like a bit of a strange topic and apologies if i'm posting in the wrong place. But it's something that i've been considering for a while now and I was wondering if anyone could add their own opinions.
Looking at the statistics for UK Charter Airlines, MyTravel has come top for On Time Performance (OTP) almost every single month for the past year and furthermore it has been a long way ahead of the airline in second place. Now, as a current employee of MYT and also with it being a North West based company, I am extremely pleased that it has recovered from its darker days and is now operating a very punctual airline.
However, what I have noticed is that MYT assigns much longer flight times to its routes than any other airline. This is resulting in many flights arriving back into the UK well ahead of schedule, some flights are arriving an hour earlier than the scheduled arrival time. An example of this is on a Wednesday morning on the MAN - FUE route. Both MYT and TCX have flights departing at 07.00. The TCX flight is scheduled to arrive back into MAN at 16.20, whereas the MYT flight is due to arrive at 17.10, some 50 minutes later. Now I know that aircraft type and air traffic slots can play a part in the actual flight time that an airline assigns, but it is the case on almost every route that MYT assigns longer flying times than its competitors.
Now in many ways, this is good for the airline. It means that if they suffer a delay to the departure of the flight, it can still arrive on time or earlier than the STA at its destination.
My questions is though, MYT are well ahead of its competitors in terms of on time performance. Is flying time taken into account when considering OTP and if not surely MYT are 'cheating' in some way in order to stay ahead of other airlines such as TCX, FCA, TOM etc. And how can airlines compete against each other in the OTP stakes when certain airlines assign ridiculously long flying times to their routes?