Punctuality at the cost of Safety
I am an F/O with a reasonable amount of experience at a major legacy carrier.
I like to think I have a good understanding of CRM, safety priorities, and operating professionally. I'm also quite relaxed in the cockpit and work on maintaing a positive and friendly cockpit atmosphere.
Naturally, together with Ground Staff and Cabin Crew we work as a team to provide customers with a punctual, safe, service.
However, and here's where I'd like some input - it is my firm belief that the sharp end of the aircraft should be focused on Safety far more than Punctuality. To my mind, On Time Performance is a Ground Staff issue. They have far more, if not complete, control over issues that will delay the flight than the cockpit does.
Making up lost time is also relatively difficult for crews, especially on shorter legs (lets say <3 hours). Block times are already normally calculated at normal cruising speed, and increasing a couple of Mach digits and flying 320 in the climb and descent isnt going to do much for you.
However, despite this, I see many Captains operating under what I believe to be an illusion that they somehow have the ability to be the difference between being on time and late. Very often a guy pushing back 5 minutes early will have a smug 'I did this' air, and be happy for the day - and the guy who is 5 minutes late feels partly guilty - and will rush the rest of the flight to try to make up that time.
I see this as a grave danger to the safety of the flight. The result, is rushed checklists, skipped items, corner cutting, overspeed taxiing, intersection take-offs, nipping at ATC for shortcuts, high speed below FL100 (bird strike) and generally operating in a rushed manner. And for what? A few minutes.
My hypothesis, shown in a very black and white manner to highlight my safety concerns - is that:
1/ We cannot change the arrival time of a flight by more than a couple of minutes, so why try so hard?
2/ We are responsible for safety, not punctuality - why should we care so disproportionately about on time performance ?
3/ Do you think that crews have this mindset at your airline as well? Is it not dangerous?