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 !

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

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

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

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

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!

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!

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.