Heathrow D - From a T1 BA boy - The normal SOP for us (never found a skipper to do anything different) is to take your slot, land and then sort it out. But we may quite often fly slowly to get as close to the required landing time as possible.. .Having said this we normally don't land at the crack of dawn so that resources are not available (Longhaul taking all the really early slots generally) and have shorter sector lengths that winds have less effect on our arrival time. i.e. the whole business is less of a problem.

Director

Sorry to hear that this problem is recurring, I thought it had been sorted. Why anyone would want to volantarily fly holds is beyond me; we get enough practise at LHR as it is!

I think the reason why people take the delay in the air rather than on the ground is down to human nature. i.e the punters.

Passengers don't like sitting on the ground at their destination airport and are prone to get aggitated and act even more stupidly than normal.

I think these guys doing loops over the Surrey countryside are just taking the easy option.

:)

Since our integration into Big Airways we have received the same edict.

You have to laugh really. If you get an on time slot and a tailwind I have sometimes arrived 45 minutes early on a flight time of an hour and a half (schedule say 2 hours 15). I'm not loading 45 minutes holding fuel (cos I'll get a bollocking for that as well), and there is no way I'm going to be as dumb as to ask ATC to let my fly the length of France at mach .50 to waste the time en route (as suggested by the company). Can you imagine that? Half the fleet flying in line abreast at FL280. The French would (quite rightly) go bonkers.

So I just arrive early. Heven't had a bollocking yet.

I've just had a brainwave. Company wants aircraft utilisation up by 10%. If everyone divided their cruise speed by 1.1 that would do it!

CPB

Overdue for a Bollocking & Frontal Lobotomy

The reason for this must be obvious, although quite insufficient.. .Most pax do not know or care about STAs slot restrictions, stand availability or fuel burn. The point is that delays while on the ground (at either end of the flight) are perceived to be the fault of the airline,but delays in the air are easily palmed off onto ATC.. .Airlines like to promote an image of an outfit where you walk on to the plane take off, fly, land and then get off. If you have to fly for a bit longer, that's ok cos you can blame ATC and most pax won't mind. If you sit on the ground for a bit longer pax get unhappy.. .Airlines will have done market research showing the truth of this and that's how these edicts find their way into the system, although I expect it's quite hard to get someone to admit it.. .Should they come clean and simply explain to the pax that, whilst they may not like sitting on the ground, it produces a lot less noise and expensive hot gas than holding?

Keendog. You're probably right. I recall being on duty when a certain lady politician went out of Heathrow some years ago. In her typically charming way she had issued instructions that once she was aboard the plane must start and taxy immediately and from the time it started to move it was not to stop - presumably to "conserve" fuel. Unfortunately she was quite a bit early... so it started as soon as she was aboard and we then had great fun routing it all around the airfield to waste 15 mins until it's slot time.

On the extremely rare times when it does turn out that my gate is still occupied (and this is just as likely, if not more so, when you're late as early), I just say words to the effect of "Well, we're here, 30 minutes early, sadly the bonus prize for being so early is that our parking stand is still occupied!"

Most of the time you can check out stand availability with the agent via company frequency, but by that time you're not far off top of drop anyway so holding would be the only option. The information so gathered can go out the window anyway as someone misses a slot or becomes unrestricted. In my experience, arriving significantly early is a function of it being a quiet time of the day (otherwise its departure slot or hold / lengthy vectors anyway), so stand availability isn't a problem.

The bottom line is I can't remember the last time I had to wait more than a minute or two for stand, but if we had had this policy in place earlier I would have been delaying departure, or holding / reducing cruise speed regularly.

This is a typical condition, namely that instead of being allowed to manage the flight in a sensible manner, I find myself constrained by some ill concieved edict from the company, or required to start making lengthy box 2 radio calls as entering the TMA.

Silly, Silly, Silly.

CPB

It couldn't be the Captain trying to maximise the crews allowances could it?. .In the past I have overtaken BA aircraft into London who were trying to get into "box D" or whatever they call it.

Visors down and cabin pressure set to combat!

Exile from Groggs and Lou Scannon

I am sorry to disappoint you but delaying a flight to secure more allowances is not something I have ever seen or practised and in fact the allowance system is not quite so easily abused. We sometimes get a request from our CC colleagues to be a few minutes later on stand because it triggers another allowance for them but the FC allowances do not work like that. Also Box Ds are long gone.

Back to the original subject. Most of us are just trying to do our job well. We have pressure to leave on time (passenger perception, station performance etc) but then are not supposed to land early (lack of parking stands, lack of staff etc). Landing and sitting on the airfield I agree is the best option but that really upsets the passengers. So if anybody has the solution, which is in fact T5 then all suggestions are welcome.

Heathrow Director

If you can apply pressure to our management I am sure that will be far more effective than anything we can do. I agrere the situation is ludicrous but contrary to the beliefs of the more puerile contributors here the problem is more complicated than it would first appear.

They're still at it.... midday today BA inbound from the middle east wanted to hold for around 10 minutes. When asked why he intimated that the stand wasn't ready. We said that was an unacceptable reason and he should hold on the ground; he agree to "carry on".

We work damned hard to assist guys who are short of fuel yet we still get these bananas who think nothing of wasting fuel simply to avoid waiting on the ground. Anyone like three guesses as to how they explain the delay to the pax?

Uh-oh...

I also hate telling the pax that "ATC has caused us considerable delay..."

But it feels so much better than landing early and having to keep the pax onboard for 20 min. The average SLC is not informed (NOT their own fault, seriously) to a level that enables them to understand that yes, the A/C is on the grounbd but no, you cannot leave it yet. That discussion never occurs while airborne :D

However, most pax feel justifiably enagered when sitting on the ground, unable to get out. It is stressful, and the poor people think they know what is happening - airline incompetence. Therefore, we have adopted a policy of "The brutal truth", where we welcome people to leave the aircraft at remote parking, from where they will be bussed to 50 m from a gate - and then sit & wait in the bus instead of the aircarft. Or the driver can let them out - so they can wait outside in N EUR perfect WX conditions. It often calms people down when they are told:

"Sorry, the terminal area is only that big, right now it's full of people. We can get you off, but we cannot get you home any faster. Meanwhile, enjoy your luxorious 36 inch pitch while our flightcrew serves you another drink or cop of coffee - beats standing an extra 20 min. in line for your luggage". A good CC will get them singing as well ("We wanna'' go HOOOOOOME!" is a favourite), and so the time passes quickly. Best of all, everybody leaves the A/C reasonably happy.

So - let's either build a lot of more teminals & gates - or get the best of the current situation. It's either/or - don't bitch about it! Change it actively - or enjoy it! :p

Happy delays to everybody,
Empty.

If an aircraft lands early it might be difficult to keep SLF seated and calm. If aircraft flies it is much much easier to keep them quieet by blaming traffic or any other reason.

How about that.

And another very interesting thread! This, it appears, is what happens when beancounters take over safety- and airmanship-related issues.

I missed this thread when it originally was started. Glad it didn't turn into the shouting match that was threatened early on.