OTP

[BLOGGSON]

Here we go, according to our illustrious leader, we must now arrive not earlier than STA -15, so no point in pushing to get away early from an outstation or achieving efficient shortcuts etc. Watch out for naming and shaming of those who depart late or arrive early. We can't win!

[birdieonfirst]

Get over it silly! This DOES make perfect sense!

Read the email, and you should be able to understand.

Let's keep the complaining to what there IS to complain about, shall we?

:ok:BOF

[glofish]

It certainly makes sense, on a micromanagement's scale. Dubai however, contrarely to the belief of many EK managers, is not the centre of the universe.

With the airway structure over Turkey, Iran, Oman, Pakistan and India it will be ever more painful if the users vary their speed according to Alan and other micromanagers.

The fatties go 84-.85, the tractor .83-.85, the 330/340 .81-.83 and then the 320/737 crawling at .76-.80, each and everone following religiously his CI ..... A nightmare for controllers.

I remember the early times on the Siberian route when the two airways were strictly .84 and the other .81. It worked!
Maybe this might alleviate a lot of babbling and squabbling if over Iran (Iraq) and over the Arabian Sea there would be Mach assigned airways.

The local airport management should stay local and not be spread over continents, affecting almost all participants.

I agree, we should not moan for any prowess coming out of the pink palace, but we can still discuss it and add our pov.

[BLOGGSON]

Since when were YOU the arbiter of what can or cannot be complained about? Passengers love early departures and arrivals.

[QCM]

Once again the pilots are responsible,and have to take corrective actions to compensate the lack of professionalism of big brains upstairs.:ugh:
Slowing down to loose 15mn or more? What about the guys in trail? They as well as ATC don't care about the DXB local issues!
Why doesn't the company simply produce adequate schedules accordingly based on seasonal datas???

[ManaAdaSystem]

BLOGGSON

Join Date: Jul 1998
Location: Hiding in the bushes.
Posts: 127
Since when were YOU the arbiter of what can or cannot be complained about?


Kindly post the name of the airline in the thread title.

Thank you!

[Capn Rex Havoc]

MANA- I am sure you will work it out.:cool:

What I got from it was that those who assign the block times have a "difficult" job.

There are simply too many variables at play to assure you will get in on blocks on time. Isn't it better to sit on the ground in some remote bay for 15mins with one engine shut down than, burning more fuel and spending more time in the air?

[falconeasydriver]

"Ahhhh no thanks arrivals...we'd like 4 more laps around the hold please:}:ok:"

Jesus wept, you'd think they could manage to produce sensible block times. In a month from now there will be an email bemoaning our Outstation OTP :ugh:

[Wizofoz]

It's for a small number of flights which have a history of arriving very early and causing gate assignment problems when they do, and we are being asked to do our job in helping the efficiency of the overall operation.

What a stupid thing to complain about.

[falconeasydriver]

Wiz, I'm assuming that as you are a trainer you will have completed the latest CRM bumph which included a good little exercise and info session with our flight planners. My response is not to complain but to express my incredulity at the seeming lack of left hand/right hand co-ordination that the aforementioned email implies. Far be it for someone to question the higher ups on their individual brilliance, commercial savvy and general big picture status, however, doing our best to help the efficiency of the operation would also surely include a critical summation? or are we now to be discouraged from being "resilient?"

[BLOGGSON]

What is it with the Australian contingent? If they disagree with your post, their first response is to fling a rude remark at you. It's not stupid. They want us to arrive on schedule for ALL flights; it says so in the closing sentence of his email. Maybe in Oz it's considered OK to sit fat dumb and happy until someone tells you you can go. Personally I prefer to chivvy them on for an early departure, and in most cases, when the usual incompetence doesn't prevail, it works.

[SOPS]

Ok, so for example, the other day I departed an out station 5 minutes early. Flying at planned CI, and the flight planned route, we landed 45 minutes early. This was due to strong tailwinds enroute and ATC giving us a vector to the ILS direct from Bubin. What should I do now? Say 'no thanks, I will just stay in the hold and burn fuel for 40 minutes'?

[birdieonfirst]

Really guys? Really...

If you're able to read this much stupidity into a quite reasonable (in my humble opinion) email, it's sad.

The intent was obviously for us to hold at the gate till departure time instead of departing early and thus not exacerbate the problem. If slowing down enroute is possible - fine. If not - fine!

Simple really.

This is called managing, and is what we should expect our manager to do.

:ok:BOF

[Oceanic]

There are just far too many variables involved for the flight crew to predict accurately the eta prior to being airborne. I tooka look at Flightradar historical arrival times for various routes over the past week and there was no pattern to many flights arrival times. Even when arriving into Dubai there may be straight in approaches, long STARs or holding. One would look a bit stupid having held at gate prior to departure only to be delayed at arrival. Surely it is better to have all pax on the ground, particularly as there are so many in transit, than to have them en-route & jeopardise connections. If the allocated gate is occupied, a bus from a remote gate would have the time to deposit them at the terminal close to scheduled arrival time. I can see this one backfiring soon, and a hasty notam to disregard will probably follow.

[sluggums]

Jeez, you guys actually read anything that that little person puts out (Being VERY polite about him). Delete, carry on as normal...

[VLS with ice]

Saw there was an email, deleted it before reading as usual. As long as there is no FCi or so, I'll leave when I'm ready. Early or late, don't really give a :mad:

[fatbus]

VLS agree ,did the same

[glofish]



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ AIRPORT ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1A3232/14
VALID: 1410070430 - 1410071100
FULLY AUTOMATIC AIRPORT COLLABORATIVE DECISION MAKING (A-CDM)DATA
EXCHANGE WITH THE NETWORK MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS CENTRE (NMOC)IS
BEING TESTED DURING THESE TIMES. THIS DATA TRANSFER ENABLES HIGHLY
ACCURATE EARLY PREDICTIONS OF DEPARTURE TIMES TO BE COMMUNICATED
TO
NMOC AND ALLOWS FOR MORE ACCURATE AND EFFICIENT CALCULATED TAKE
OFF
TIME (CTOT) CALCULATIONS BASED UPON TARGET OFF BLOCKS TIME (TOBT)
INFORMATION SUPPLIED FOR EACH DEPARTING FLIGHT BY GROUND HANDLING
COMPANIES.

Does AS know?
Shows how futile skippers influence out of departure airports can get.

[Mr Angry from Purley]

You guys either have too much time off {unlikely} not enough things to do{too much time in Hotels, again unlikely} need to get a life {maybe} or just shut the **** up moaning all the time.
Love you lots :\:\

[glofish]

MAFP: Your name says it all .....

What triggered your fury? The closeness from LGW?
Who the **** wastes time here?? Who needs a life??
At least we go with the thread and discussion, you're just whining.

[Fear_of_heights]

Most of those flights are 6+ hours away so they have plenty of time to rearrange parking stands.... even shut down one engine in dxb and hold somewhere till your stand is open if you are early !

[Al Murdoch]

I just re-read the email and found nothing in there that either offended me or increased my blood pressure.
Should I be worried?

[alwayzinit]

The only thing I got from the OTP email was that at last AS was writing about something operational rather than some twaddle about rolling luggage!

Though seriously heard a UK return flight being slowed right up due to arrival stands. When we arrived there were loads of empty concourse stands so it must be a really really complicated equation. He pulled up next to us and his stand had been empty when we arrived?????:ugh: Hmmmm

[CaptainChipotle]

I guess getting the passengers into dxb early would be too much time and more money spent in duty free. Totally makes sense.

[GA Button]

This is no biggie - EK are just starting to do what many airlines have been doing for years - being sensible about arriving excessively early!

[Shangaan]

Gents.....Gates at DXB have become an issue and will become a bigger issue.....hence the reason for the new OTP. Rather hold for a on time departure rather than arriving to early and have passengers wondering why you holding on taxiway for a parking bay. Its that simple!

[Outatowner]

Chances are this will go the same way as other great initiatives such as the RTA program, Factoring 1, certain rostering practices, etc.

In the meantime, they "need help"

If your bonuses are in the wind, please feel free to tinker with rosters after CRS gives what was bid for, take away a day off or two, adjust the overtime threshold up to 96hrs, allot annual leave 5 days a month all year round, charge for water.

Why not pick up pilots from home 20min earlier, that'll help something.

Anything we can do to help out, just say the word!

[PositiveRate876]

There are two fundamental flaws with the email.


First, the majority of flights are under-blocked. Which means unless the flight departs early, it will be late arriving. So the simplistic approach of a hard rule prohibiting early departures will just exacerbate the issue of OTP.


Secondly, the root cause of the problem is not lack of stands. With 179 stands on the field there's plenty of parking available. The problem is systemic understaffing of ground support personnel. Hire enough manpower, and 15 flights arriving half an hour ahead of schedule will not throw a wrench in the system.