DNATA = Do Nothing At The Airport.
I've long held the belief that DNATA seemingly operate via some sort of 'script', i.e. that for each departure they have a pre-defined set of instructions wherein each element is commenced in accordance with the number of minutes allocated (no doubt contractually so) to the dispatching of the aircraft.
E.g. if one is doing a 4x sector day and one arrives back in Dubai at the end of sector #2 but are running, say, 10 minutes late... no matter how fast yourself & crew go at it wrt, getting the aircraft ready for its subsequent departure (i.e. you manage to catch-up those 10 minutes), you will inevitably find yourself waiting for passengers for the exact same amount of time that you arrived late on-blocks, and which probably accounts for their almost maniacal desire to know ones 'on-blocks' time, because it's based upon that time when their countdown clock starts ticking.
Basically, if your turn-around is budgeted to take one hour, then DNATA will take precisely that, and (for them at least) thinking outside the box and / or being pro-active (i.e. operating outside of their standard script) is probably not encouraged.
Needless to say, any sort of hiccup in the process, e.g. due to mother nature dropping some fog into the equation, and DNATA's 'script' has no flex within it for any sort of ad-libbing.
Just my $0.02
Last edited by Old King Coal; 22nd Feb 2014 at 16:45.