Dammit! They're on to us! Go to Plan 99! :}

Very interesting. Wife is due to depart this evening on BA025. Reading your lines about, what in my job, is called service level agreements, just shows how common the practice is of manipulating the system, to get SLA's within time and budget. :D

- what are BA LHR tuggies charging these days for a 3mtr push?:)

If you want to see an art form made out of SLA manipulation just look at the London Underground.

Pretty much only drivers going on strike or power going off will cause them to admit a "severe delay" .... everything else just gets brushed off as a "minor delay" ... but most of the time they figure out how to massage the SLAs so they can call it "good service" ....

Further to the above AFAIK the OUT time trigger event is airline specific, I haven't had a chance to ask around about what we use (yet) but it's possible there's no need to negotiate with the BA tuggies and plan A may well still work......:E :D

spanners may well be right, but it USED to be as you say, Plan A:ok:

Spanners,
Not so on the 777, just doors closed and brakes released (even momentarily)
Trust me..........especially when I'm on overtime!!!!

Cairo was always an interesting one, particularly at school holiday time when the teachers were going back and forth. Remember a very optimistic load sheet lady looking at me one day, with a big smile, some fifteen minutes after scheduled departure and saying, "Can we have an on time departure captain?". Yerr, right! :)


Due to slots/congestion getting an on time push at LHR going to SIN was rare but arrival was invariably on time or early.

As someone mentioned it may well be airline specific, ours used to be doors closed etc.

I doubt carriers would ever agree to a single, unified, understanding of 'departure' and 'arrival' because, some of them would have their timings get worse and some would have them get better. :bored:

For myself, I think that, for all the shouting about good time keeping by the kids in PR and consumer groups - the public will generally go for the lower price and accept the delays!

For all that, delays are endemic to the business and are not going to improve - particularly in the UK and Europe.