Virgin shows way with on-time stats

[Wirraway]

Fri "The Australian"

Virgin shows way with on-time stats
By Steve Creedy
October 10, 2003

THE federal Government hopes to release official airline on-time performance statistics by the end of the year after Virgin set the ball rolling this week by voluntarily publishing a monthly national average figure.

Virgin threw down the gauntlet to Qantas with a provocative newspaper advertisement measuring its 89 per cent on-time performance against a series of international carriers, with Qantas entered as a question mark.

The figures used an international standard that counts all flights within 15 minutes of scheduled departure as on time.

They were based on pilots' log books using aircrafts' internal clocks, spokesman David Huttner said.

A spokesman for Transport Minister John Anderson said the department was continuing to work through issues with the airlines.

"We hope to have the first stats out by the end of the year," he said.

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[woftam]

If one was cynical (which of course I am not) one could say that this "method" of time keeping is open to some very "creative accounting".
This method vs ACARS (no "fudge factor") is like comparing apples and oranges.

;)

[Sperm Bank]

Not at all woftam. There has to be common agreement between the pilot's and the ground crew who also record the push back time. Creative accounting is not possible with some of the anal retentive clowns we have watching clocks etc.

[404 Titan]

Forgive me if I’m wrong but I have seen OTP fudged by an agreement between ground crew and tech crew by releasing the park brake early. Of course the aircraft was hooked up to the tug and the chocks were in. As in our case OTP is based on brakes release via ACARS automatically. If this is done it could fudge the figures for the company.

[drivabilongbalus]

404 titan

from my limited understanding this can happen but the ACARS will log off blox time only when the park brake is released AND all doors are closed. If this is so, can't see how early brakes release will change the off blox time unless the flight crew aren't ready to go when then doors are all closed? :confused:

[mulgabill]

Rumour has it that Mr Huttner has been doing his bit to keep up the schedule- by directing staff to load 160 passengers on an aircraft with NO CREW in attendance- Captain not happy chappy when he arrives. If this is the price of running on time then perhaps some non operational managers should keep their nose out of it.

[404 Titan]

drivabilongbalus

Very true. I think what happened from memory was the Ground staff at a particular Australian port that were being audited for OTP by the company asked the ground engineer if we could release the park brake "on time" when they couldn’t get a gate off the aircraft.

[TIMMEEEE]

Have to agree with fudging figures.

The fact remains that ACARS is the ideal device but Virgin dont deem such a powerful tool and device worthy of installation in their aircraft.
Hence the system is definitely open to very creative accounting.

I hear Alan Bond's accountant is looking for work.
Maybe Huttner and the whinger can bring him into "the team".

[The_Cutest_of_Borg]

ACARS can of course be fudged as well. QF guys were doing it all the time a few years ago till the edict came down to stop it. "You can't fix the problems if you don't know about them.." Very wise

Unfortunately Joe Public has no idea where these figures are derived and if the VB guys want to report on time departures when they are a minute or two late, there is nothing to stop them.

Departure times are one thing but surely, for the practical minded at least, aren't ARRIVAL times a better indication of punctuality?.

If so, surely aircraft landing times are logged somewhere?

Why not go on the ACARS arrival time for QF, (Not really fudgeable) and the landing time plus 5 minutes for each VB plane?

Or am I being too practical here?

[cunninglinguist]

I'm with you cutest, who cares what the dep. time is as long as you get there on time , especially if leaving late means less time in the alloy tube.
As I think has been mentioned previously, leaving on time is useless ( to pax ) if you sit up at F390, econ.,pushing into 120kt hwc, and arrive 20 minutes late. Please, don't anyone dare say that this does'nt happen !!

So Virgin pilots are logging off blocks time in their log books, good on them, it's not like they've got anything better to do.
Do us all a favour Huttner, get some expert advice be4 opening your mouth on aviation matters, stick to what you know, which is........................................................?? :confused:

[Aussie Fo]

The reality is that you cant be totally acurate with ont ime departure.

The other day, at the QF domestic terminal, ready on time. Request pushback, with that granted reqauirement to push after the inbound 737 for the next bay. Now comunicate with ground, asks us to release brakes inanticipation 2 minutes later we push but it is now 2 minutes late, with a on time departure recorded. There was no intention of trying to record a on time departure that is merely how things happened.

Similarily by recording it as landing time, problem can easily be solves, make the flight times longer.

As a aside i thimk that some break up of the Qantas figures would need to be done. Ie compare the Virgin figures with the Qantas 767 and 737, the international fleet with the other international arrivals ant Qantaslink figures with Rex, Skywest etc.

[PBR Streetgang]

Departure times NOT arrival times are used for one reason only - that's the yardstick that most matters to the flying public. Unbelievable but true. Airlines the world over have been scratching their respective nuts over this slight quirk of customer logic for decades.

Fact is, you can leave fifteen late, get in five early and they'll STILL have a whinge about a late departure. So there you go!

[The_Cutest_of_Borg]

Hmmm I guess it is because they usually know the departure time but have little idea of the sched arrival time..

[apacau]

Well where are the daily on time departure stats? I haven't seen them on the website yet.

[pissed an' broke]

The Cutest of Borg, you are quite correct in that arrival time is a truer indication of punctuality, however a comparison of QF vs DJ arrival times becomes meaningless because of vastly different flight times quoted by both airlines, especially when flying westbound. A comparison of published schedules will show you that DJ allow 20mins extra MEL-PER and 15mins ADL-PER. All westbound flights that I could see published were significantly longer if travelling DJ. So next time DJ tell you that they got you to your destination 5 minutes early, remember you could have been there 15 minutes earlier if travelling QF.