Unscheduled allocation of a jet-bridge - hard stand

[Rwy in Sight]

I am having a conversation with a FO friend, regarding the allocation of a jet bridge - nose-in stand (which is the right term?) at the request of the airline for a single flight.

If said airline wants to speed up the turn around and facilitate pax movement, can it request a jet bridge for a (single) flight that is normally planned to go to a remote stand provided it does so some time in advance let's say 2 hours? And if yes any indication how much it cost in a European airport (a general figure will suffice).

Thanks in advance.

Rwy in Sight

[Trabbi]

Speeding up a turn-around on a jetbridge usually does not work.
If one wants to speed up turn-around, a remote stand with two stairs (and two or more busses are available) will be a better choice.
Problem: Boarding through only front door on a jetbridge position (I am not talking about the classy oh-we-have-two-bridges-for-one-stand-airports) takes longer than letting the passengers pour out of the busses into the aircraft.
Disadvantages: If you are missing a passenger and he will appear at the gate late, on jetbridge he is in the plane in a sec, on a tarmac you need a bus transportation.
And you need pax busses. Can be late/not available too and delays the process.

Finally, not all Jetbridge positions are fixed allocated. If you request one and there is a gap, you will get it. For the passengers it is more comfortable to disembark, embark through a jetbridge. But the airports will usually allocate the big boys at the gate, because, how many busses U need for an A380?
Chance rise with number of pax to get a jetbridge stand...

Greets,

Trabbi

[Rwy in Sight]

Trabbi,


Thanks for your answer. It did enlighten me. Let me add though some details on the story. The airplane was late inbound to base and it still had to fly to two more destinations. I was on the first one. My thread started because I thought that by using the jet bridge, the time for the pax from my flight, from airplane to landside would be shorter than using a single bus for an A320 aircraft. With the added benefit of speeding the boarding for the flight to the second destination given there were a lot of empty jet-bridges.

Thanks again for your time.

Rwy in Sight

[Friendly Dispatcher]

If I was looking a quicker turnaround time, I'd much rather have two sets of stairs than an airbridge, but that's considering it at my particular station.

For an A320 with full load, it's in most cases much quicker to disembark via two sets of steps and also board via two sets of steps, providing passengers use the right ones depending on their seat row. If you are parked remotely rather than just a terminal stand with no bridge, the availability of buses has to be considered. Provided there are two or three buses available, most of the outbound pax could be reconciled through the gate before the cabin is even ready for boarding. Thus allowing the bags of missing pax to be found early rather than having to wait until the queue of passengers filters down the jetbridge and onto the aircraft so you can process everyone through the gate.

So in reality it's probably a lot more dependent on the station in question and how efficient it is together with bus availablity. If it's your homebase at least you'd have an idea of their performance and be able to co-ordinate with them in advance if you know things are running late.

[British Grenadier]

I suppose it depends on what your spinning , A320 ... ok , remote stand two towable steps , ok .......A380 remote stand , :mad: off ....................how many coaches , and what time , .......................sounds of manic laughter .............LHR, living the dream ........

[Rwy in Sight]

Thanks a lot guys. You are a great batch of teachers. I learned a lot from the thread. I was looking mainly on my time from the aircraft to the car park rather than the big picture with the airplane continuing its schedule for the night.

It seems the airline did want to make up for the delay. In the regional airport where I boarded (the first outbound after the delay) they did use two buses and the A320 had a better turn around time than the DASH 8-400 that flew in few minutes before.

Because it was the first flight of this airline with any significant delay (and by chance the only one I cared to be on time) I was intrigued if they really wanted to make up for the delay or they just meant to carry it forward until the end of the day.

The FO friend agreed with me that I would be better off after spending a day or two at and Ops room trying to see what goes behind the scenes. :ok:


Rwy in Sight

[Friendly Dispatcher]

Rwy in Sight,

I find it quite interesting your level of understanding of the turnaround from our perspective. Crews' level of understanding or lack of is something I never really considered before and so I assumed (Rule 1 in this game, assume nothing!) that it was more a case of them unrealistically expecting the world from us.

Some of the crews I work with have come throug the ground handling industry and so have a good working knowledge of behind the scenes, but I never really considered how those oblivious to the internal workings , understood it all. Now you mention it, I'd love to be able to take a few crews and have them shadow us on the ramp for a few days to gain a better insight into it from our perspective. :ok:

Good thread, if you've any other questions just ask!

[AirResearcher]

Just a thought.... if an airbridge is used and the flight is boarded strictly by seatrow(ie rear rows first)..at most airports... it will normally be far..far.. faster than using buses provided enough time has been given to to make any gate changes and get the pax (unless its free-for-all seating) , bags ,catering,fuel etc to the correct gate on time .... if it involves a terminal change then the opposite will probably apply IMHO...

[Trabbi]

@Friendly Dispatcher: Seconded!

@AirResearcher: That is the plan always, tell the pax, wait until your row is called. Some do it by colour of the boarding cards, some by rows, some by classes. The problem as always: the pax :)
We used to do it even when boarding with busses: Passengers from row 15 (or else) please use rear airstairs.
Usually passengers leave their brains at home.
Ever been at a gate where you do several calls: ONLY rows 30 to 35 and watch how many passengers with seats in other rows want to pass the gate.

Greets,

Trabbi

[Rwy in Sight]

Trabbi,

The issue here is that the agent doing the boarding can't spend too much time arguing with a pax with a wrong boarding order. In my experience, they usually allow them to board just to keep the procedure going. Maybe it works better is two agents are working the flight thus the line keep moving. Fortunately in my local airport people on the bus listen to the announcement and board through the correct door.

Maybe pax need to take a course before allowed at the airport.

Rwy in Sight

[Piltdown Man]

For the fastest turnround use a remote stand, nose out and two sets of stairs and your APU. Eliminating tugs, pushbacks and reducing groundcrew and equipment to a minimum is the key.

PM

[AirResearcher]

Trabbi you are of course correct :), it's a good idea in theory. It seems to work in Frankfurt, though that may be a cultural thing..?

PM, are you looking at that from a flight deck perspective? Some remote stands can take 15 minutes to drive to, and if any pax go AWOL , which happens frequently, it often delays the all the pax on the last bus. And theres' always the risk of buses not arriving on time, and it also takes the loading team etc longer to get the bags on and off (unless we are talking about FR etc ??)

[Trabbi]

Hehe, yes, every coin has two sides. Put that plane remote, you can board with two busses, but need two set of steps, busses etc. Put that plane on the jetway the passengers will be slow as snails...
If you have an overlook on the Ramp staff vehicles and know if they are available, I would tend to remote. But of course lets say 757/321 max.

BTW - keeping control of the passengers boarding rows is good but enforcing this you need at least two or three boarding gate staff. And personell is limited these days as airlines pay peanuts to the handling agent and they cut costs with reducing personell. That's the business...

Greets to all,

Trabbi

[Rwy in Sight]

Trabbi,

Since your brought it up again, I am trying to see why boarding using buses can be quicker. Buses at my airport are always available but my observations shows there is a long wait for the bus to fill and then driving off to the aircraft.
At the same time boarding via a jet bridge, pax can move rather swiftly and even late pax would not delay flight as much.

I am curious to see what can be done to shorten the delay. I suspect a lot of things are not visible to SLF so I am curious what are they. Also in my case the ground crew told me about a 20' delay which turned to be and remain 40'. Did the ground crew "shorten" the delay to make it look better?

If the last remarks are offending for the ground crew please disregard it!

Rwy in Sight

[Trabbi]

Just to give you a quick peek into those really tight "must-go" flights, when everything HAS to be there otherwise the flight will be stranded (nightban, airport closure time).
Plane goes to remote stand and at the time it is parked we have already finished (!) the boarding process by putting all pax into the busses. Means: we have the certainty that all checked in pax are available (missing passengers are not the problem BTW, only their luggage which has to be removed and this is the time consuming part).
Airports by the way hate this because the busses are used as "mobile lounges" and sometimes have to wait longer at the plane because something is "not ready yet". We transfer the busses (passengers) to the plane and when the last inbound pax has left the plane (and minimum cleaning (or whatever is required)) the bus doors open and the passengers board the plane (through two doors).
The "only" time you save with a remote stand is the two-door scenario. De-boarding time cut by half, Boarding time cut by half.
Send the busses early enough and you do not need to care if the remote stand is 1 mile away. If the plane is late (what it is), all passengers are at the gate to board the busses. If not, offload them and offload the bag before you even started loading the bags into the plane.
Of course, in real life, a million things can happen to void your plan.
Every aircraft type has a certain minimum turn-around time (the airlines publish their own times) and the ground staff has to "turn around" the aircraft in this time minimum. This ground time isn't very generous, usually you have to struggle hard to stick to it.
Anyways, if you are SLF, me as ground crew would always lie to you about the delay and would shorten it, because if I would tell you the truth (40 minutes), you would start shopping, drinking, leaving the gate and most probably not returned in time for the boarding. This is another way to "reduce the delay". Your plane is not a bus you hop on, hop off. We need you at the gate half an hour before departure, not 2 minutes ;)

Hope this gives you a little insight. And this is only the tip of the iceberg...

Greets,

Alex