Originally Posted by
MANFOD
Thanks for your comments Shed.
A good example of what I meant just now on FR24. A Monarch on short finals with a flybe turning over Oldham on his approach. Nothing else except 4 a/c still in the hold at Dayne.
Whilst it's a fascinating app, FR24 isn't a very good tool to use in such an analysis. Not everything shows up on it (though I grant you a lot more does than used to be the case) so apparent gaps may not actually be there. You also get the phenomenon sometimes of Embraers and Dashes seemingly coming to a halt after passing Stockport and being overtaken by an Airbus or Boeing!
Phil - to add to your last paragraph, apart from the push for profits/dividends by shareholders, there is also the desire from us, the paying public to fly for peanuts, which also drives the push minimize costs.
What would be truly revealing would be for someone 'in the know' to breakdown the costs of a diversion, and whether an airport really does make any money from it. I suspect that in these days of contract penalties the benefit of making a few hundred quid (if that) from a diversion is outweighed by the risk of the cost of making a scheduled inbound wait for a service that that diversion has taken for longer than expected.