heh, heh, gotta be a joke

[birdbrain]

Ryanair has been named as the most punctual airline by Britain's aviation regulator. The Civil Aviation Authority is confirming that from January to July, Ryanair was the most punctual airline on routes from London to Dublin, Brussels, Stockholm, Rome and Berlin.:rolleyes:

[Final 3 Greens]

Strangely enough, my experiences do support this award.

Remember that FR fly out of (relatively) uncongested airports so this should help their numbers.

[Daysleeper]

Just because you may not agree with the methods used does not mean that they are not effective.

[birdbrain]

Strangely enough I don't disagree with their methods... but, having flown with them twice almost every week for the past No. of years I have rarely found them to be less than 30mins late. Thats O.K. when one is expecting it, but if you don't use them very regularly and are expecting to be on time ... it can be very irritating.. especially if you read an article like this before you travel.:{

[dada]

birdbrain- appropriate handle you have
No personal abuse ..thank you H.

[Devils Advocate]

What never fails to amaze me is that the punctuality stats are based exclusively on departure times - and not take-off or arrival times.

E.g. So long as we close the doors & push-back on time we're recorded as having an 'on time' departure ( even if we subsequently go and 'remote hold' somewhere on the airport, i.e. usually awaiting an improvement in an ATC slot ).

The fact that one might subsequently arrive late ( maybe very late ) is not taken into account in the CAA stats.

Of course some would suggest that, w.r.t what the stats reveal, it's going to be swings-and-roundabouts, e.g. if you arrive late at your destination then you'll take an equivalent hit on the return flight and it will therefore even out.

However the CAA stats are based on departure times 'from' ( not 'to' ) the UK's predominantly larger / 'slot managed' airports and / or those airports where they have jurisdiction.

I.e. The fact that you might push back on-time at, say, Gatwick and then remote hold ( on stand 128 ? ) for 45 minutes, and then arrive 45 minutes late at, say, Skiathos, and that your return flight back to Gatwick is then ( as a knock-on / ‘reactionary’ ) delayed by 45 minutes, it matters not one jot...... i.e. as far as the CAA stats are concerned your an 'on-time' operator out of LGW on the Skiathos route !

Now how goes the saying, "Lies, damned lies, and statistics !" ?

[Neo]

Are you sure it's not down to some sharp practice on the part of FR? We all know their penchant for artistic licence with their destination airport names - you know Frankfurt(Hahn), London(Blackpool) that kind of thing. So why not 10.30(13.30) or 04:50(07:05)? It should massage the delay figures nicely!

[LGS6753]

Arriving on time is more important to the SLF. So of course "flight times" are made generous in timetables. The punters may be unhappy about a 45minute delay on departure, but if the arrival is on time, it's all forgotten.
And your average punter doesn't know whether true flying time to Alicante is 2 hours, 2:30 or 3 hours.

[brownstar]

Devils Advocate

Departure times, take off times, arrival times. They are all generally on time or ahead of schedule. That's all that matters to the passengers. End of story.
P.S. I have never known of a Ryanair flight that has remote held for 45 mins, far too expensive. Maybe you could tell us more?

either put up or shut up!

[Tenminutes]

RYR once held over NQY for over an hour due wx. Oh, and how many passengers to they leave behind in order to keep on time ?

[IanH]

and speaking as a SLF..........

I regularly fly PIK - STN - PIK with Ryanair........ must be pushing on the 100 flights by now.. the most delay I have had is 40 mins........ I must be one of the lucky ones !

The longest delay I had was with EZY....... 4 hours........

Ian H

[Localiser Green]

The CAA statistics at flightontime.info (http://www.flightontime.info) relate to arrivals and departures, and are based on takeoff and landing times in most cases.

Ryanair seem to do pretty well compared to EZY, take Stansted as an example:

Ryanair Stansted Punctuality (http://www.flightontime.info/loco/airlines/ryr.html)
easyJet Stansted Punctuality (see Table 2) (http://www.flightontime.info/loco/airlines/ezy.html)

79.8% of Ryanair flights on-time, compared to 59.0% of easyJet. 2.5% of Ryanair flights > 1 hour late, compared to 11.9% of easyJet.

I don't think IanH was just "one of the lucky ones".

[Scottish Flyer]

I have flown Ryanair about 60 times in the last few years and only had two flights with a delay of over an hour. On only about 5 other occasions has the flight even been late. If you study their scheduled times, they have far less "padding" than most other airlines. Ryanair may not have brilliant customer service but as a frequent flyer I find them acceptable because of the low fares and excellent timekeeping. I also fly regularly with other low cost and full service airlines and have been less than impressed with their timekeeping.

[pancho]

Tenminutes......Ryanair nor its crewmembers are not responsible for the weather, if they can't land they can't land. And if a passenger arrives late at the boarding gate and misses the flight well thats their own fault, a flight cannot depart early unless all checked in passengers have been accounted for. So get your facts right.

[Wing Commander Fowler]

Well said Pancho - thoroughly agree with you - "Wait for passengers"??? Ok, 188 on time passengers and a schedule runs late cos one decides he's not gonna join them til he's finished his pint?? I don't think so.....

On another point made by devil's advocate

However the CAA stats are based on departure times 'from' ( not 'to' ) the UK's predominantly larger / 'slot managed' airports and / or those airports where they have jurisdiction.

errm slots may apply due to congestion at destination airfields and within airways and apply to all operators. This would make that a fairly common denominator.... The "On time" departure stats should in my opinion make comparison on an operator's ability to provide a serviceable aeroplane and present it on stand fully loaded and able to depart "on time". Therefore the practice of pushing back to a remote stand does not (IMHO) colour the situation in any way. It makes it a proper representation actually.

:\

[birdbrain]

Delighted with the response to my first thread started here. Thank you alfor contributing.
I only have two more things to say,
1)-once when flying LPL-DUB with FR it took 8 hrs is this a record ???.... yep diverted to SNN due to fog, bus back to DUB... heh, heh...
2) with regard to the comment from 'DADA'... well, what can I say ? except maybe, don't expect anything from a pig bit a grunt !:rolleyes:

[johnpilot]

The Ryanair team does try to keep up and be on time, and IMHO this is not done by pushing back early to keep to scheduled times even if you have a slot, nor does the commercial department increase block times, because our flight pay is based on scheduled block time, therefore it would be a very costly operation to keep on time statistics. I think this on time performance is achieved beacuse of using regional airports, therefore short taxi times no congestion, efficient utilization of ground time, and hard work on everyones part. Bagagge handlers do get paid bonuses to keep up to schedule, and constant auditing helps all of us to be vigilant. Ryanair always negotiates performance related contracts and that includes ground handling, so everyone tries his/her best to keep the ball rolling.
I was flying with a new contract Captain (British Airways Mainline) and he was amazed that we could keep to a schedule and do it safely efficiently and with standard speeds. It goes to show that from the outside people can only critisize and speculate about how it is done, but when you come on onboard and see the operation you realize that it is not astro-physics, its just efficiency and thinking outside the box
JP:D
It also dependes how efficient the competition is on a route. If you can do it with a 30 minute delay but the other guys do it with an hours delay, then you are still number 1....

[Whalerider]

Having flown about 50 times each on both RYR and EZY - my experience is that RYR time keeping is excellent. In contrast EZY's is not at all good - and sometimes pretty awful. This is despite the fact that EZY 'pad out' sector times.
Also glad to see that RYR - or should I say handling agent - have now sorted out baggage delays at STN.

[pancho]

birdbrain...regarding your point 1...being 8 hours late arriving at your destination due fog and a diversion sounds like you were in the hands of a professional crew and company. What else would you prefer, have them break the rules and end up as another kind of statistic, the tragic sort? :*

[chippy63]

IanH,
Hope you've got your FR credit card if you ravel that much- I think you get one free flight per ten travelled.

[Whiskey Zulu]

On time....maybe.
All pax baggage on flight.........often not.

That's been my experience.

[WHBM]

Although I criticise FR in other areas, I too have found their timekeeping to be one of the best. And on STN-DUB, my most frequent route with them, neither airport could be considered secondary. And this is with 20 year old 737-200s, 25 minute turnarounds, and contract maintenance. Shows the flag carriers what can be done.

But this practice of stopping baggage loading to make an on-time departure for the statistics is growing, and is not confined to FR (see other posts on PPruNe from crews about this). If the CAA could be bothered, they would have stamped this out long ago.

FR have never left my baggage off, but they did once decide to leave all the catering off in a tight Stansted turnaround. I hope they take a more professional approach with the fuel.

[surely not]

Johnpilot I had heard that RYR sched the a/c to go everywhere at Max cruising speed? Is this not the case because some of your sector times would be very difficult to achieve if you didn't?

WHBM. Sorry what catering did they leave off?? There's hardly any on there in the first place!!!

Without doubt the RYR timekeeping is primarily down to their use of regional airports with little congestion. EZY choose to operate the congested main airports and I suggest that is why their stats aren't so good.

For the number of flights that they now operate I doubt that RYR baggage delivery is significantly worse than many others, except possibly at DUB where it seems to be a bit of a lottery.

[WHBM]

WHBM. Sorry what catering did they leave off?? There's hardly any on there in the first place!!!
surely not:

Ryanair (and EasyJet etc) go with plenty of cartfulls of food and drink. It's just that you have to pay for it, of course. Ryanair even have little menu cards now (sponsored by their coffee supplier).

And regarding baggage, we weren't speaking about tardy baggage delivery at the end of the flight, rather about deliberately not loading it in the first place if it would compromise an on-time departure. Result: Good figures for the CAA, all pax grossly messed about until the bags catch up.