Departure and arrival times
 

All, what is your interpretation of published departure and arrival times ?

Door closed ?
Request taxi ?
Start pushback ?
Start forward taxy ?
Wheels up ?

And while we are at it, for arrivals as well.

Touchdown ?
Stop on stand ?
Door open ?
Baggage in hall ? (just kidding that last one).

Looking at published punctuality statistics vs. actual performance.

I can give you some information, which may be of use:

Gate Closed STD -10
Doors Closed STD -3

Not sure there are engagement times for push/taxi/runway/wheels up.

The A/C should be on stand at STA, and doors open shortly after, although I know some flight crew will say we're on schedule if we touch down at STA...it's a kind of poetic licence I think.:)

As for baggage in hall, I'd start with baggage in right country first.......

tsb

The industry usually refers to the off-block time as the published "departure" time, i. e. on a gate position requiring push-back it's the time the aircraft is pushed-back. On a stand without a pushback it is the time of the movement of the plane from the stand.
Of course there are some variations by different airlines, for example (my knowledge):
KLM Cityhopper: Time of Switching Anti-Collision Light on
Delta/Northwest: Releasing Brakes on Stand
No airline refers the Departure time to the actual "departure" (airborne) time.

Arrival? Well, it's the on block time at the stand/gate, not the "landing" time.

Greets,

Trabbi

Our lot refer to off chocks time, which is frustrating as somewhere like Amsterdam that can result in a 30+ minute taxi - hardly of use for calculating accurate ETAs and/or starting overdue action in less salubrious parts of the world.

Ascot BZN
 

The way (Ascot) cacl'd mvt times were not as we (civil) did.

Trad way which still applies to most operational applications are:

A flight commences/terminates at Off Blocks/On Blocks (Brakes Off/Brakes
On) Published schedule times are basec on these times.

Flight time is cacl'd form wheels off to wheels on.

Doors closed/opened is a specific pax handling/traffic application.

Too simple really, there are so many interpretations operationally, but for pax ops the IATA terms are applied.

PS. I wasn't Ascot, but involved with BZN & the Truckers @ LYE

OOOI

All doors closed Wheels turn (Brake off)

Wheels off ground (no correction for taxi time)

Wheels on ground

Wheels stop Brake on (No correction for taxi time)



AD (Brakes off, push commence / Airbourn)
AA (Landed / Brakes on)

Off / Out / on / in

for our MVT in messages we used "blocks" and MVT out we used A/B

there are also automatically generated mvt messages coming directly from sensors in the aircraft. they are transmitted via acars.

out: offblock (m1a)
air: airborne (m1b)
on: touchdown (m1c)
in: onblocks (m1d)


often a good means to control the mvt messages sent by the handling agent :cool::cool:

It is basically whatever time the dispatcher (with non-ACARS aircraft) decides to falsify his/her paperwork with, as subsequently amended by equally devious managers. :E I've seen lo-co flights logged as on-time despite departing 20 mins late.

Believe what you choose.

Actual (ACARS) dep. might easily be 15-20 mins later than MVT dep. time in some parts of Europe.:)

Maude Charlee is right; the dispatcher's paperwork is generally used for compilation of DEP/ARR times. When I was a dispatcher, we used on chocks, engines & beacon "off" as ARR time; start of pushback (or taxi on self-manoeuvering stands) for DEP (with the exception of KLM/KLM Cityhopper who use beacon "on" instead).

Now that I fill in the PLOG (always being PNF on the ground), my company use start of pushback/taxi as DEP and "chocks on" as ARR time - to the nearest minute (from the GPS to be accurate). No rounding up or down. Good for mental arythmetic when calculating block and flight times!

As Maude Charlee wrote, at some lo-cost outfits the cpt. agrees an off-blocks time with the dispatcher while he/she is still on the flight deck - let alone doors closed, chocks off, beacon "on" or pushback started! Talk about creative accounting... :rolleyes:

Cheers :cool: