Surely RYR are at fault here too. If the ground handling agent are given an estimated departure time, this would have come from the airline or crew, if airline then recieve a slot that is earlier than the estimated departure time they have given to the handlers then to be honest they are asking for trouble here. I would have thought you have 2 options here -
1. Board the flight anyway for on time departure, close the aircraft up and get a ready message put in for the the slot. (my option!)
2. The airline refile the flight plan for the new estimated departure time, they would then recieve a slot that would be no earlier than this time, in this case not before 1840. (to be fair, on the evening in question an estimated departure time would have been a guesstimate!!)
I know at times like the evening in question it can be chaos, if the airline don't tell the handling agent that they are trying to get an earlier slot then the airline are to blame.When flights are delayed like this, staffing is a huge issue for handling agents, if the airline aren't willing to board the flight on time to wait for a slot, even if it is 2 hours for the pax sat on the aircraft, then that flight risks losing the staff to board it and go into a queue.
Glad to not be a dispatcher anymore
