10W
Thank you for your reply to my post back on page 1. I agree totally with what you say and having worked for several years in airline operations and specifically ATC slots, I can just about remember some of the published taxi times for the various airfields (not many though). This gives me a good understanding now as to whether the Palma controller that day was being sensible or making a statement. I assure you without any doubt that it was the latter. It wasn't just us but several aircraft at the same time that were being denied pushback clearance literally because of a minute or two past EOBT.
For us, we were on the north side of the ramp, so we were close to the departure runway 24R. The 15 mins at Palma is designed to allow sufficient time for aircraft to taxi from the southwest side to 24R. There were no aircraft at the time at the holding point. We called for push and start at CTOT -10, so yes effectively 5 minutes after EOBT but 20 minutes prior to the slot expiry.
We must remember that the -5/+10 is not ours but the tool of the controller. However, aircraft turnarounds are far from an exact science and do need some flexibility where possible. This was neither and seems very unlikely to have any positive outcome for anyone.
I wish the controllers the best in settling their dispute but lets have some common sense.
B&B