Quick turn-around - Not rewarded?

[alfkan]

I find it odd that a quick turn-around seems to be less rewarded compared to what I would think is the situation in THE REAL LIFE in aviation! If I keep my aircraft grounded and idle between each flight for a relative much longer time, say 100% more, than what is set as the minimum turn-around time spesified for the a/c in use, I'll be highly rewarded by increasing CI numbers and LF's.  Okei, lesson learned... But, come on!

[Kadachiman]

It is so much harder to move imaginary people than real people .....first you have to find them 

I don't know why the flight time of my plane should be so long as it's only about 3cms on the map...also why does my plane use so much fuel as it's not real ....lol

[DenisG]

I do not see why CI and LF should go up when scheduling much shorter turn-arounds, thus running the risk of delays and mistakes. There is no logical chain between CI and LF on the one side and turnaround on the other.
Cheers,
Denis

[Sigma]

The minimum turnaround time is just that -- the absolute minimum.

But things happen.  Crews don't show up.  The fuel truck runs a little late.  The catering guy is taking a smoke break.  The pilot knocks a knob off in the cockpit.  The passenger load has more families and elderly than normal and take forever to load.  Whatever.

Now imagine these two scenarios:

Airline #1 lands at 1400, says they'll take off to XXX at 1430.
Airline #2 lands at 1400, says they'll take off to XXX at 1500.

As a customer, you don't give a flying fart how long the "turnaround time" is.  Doesn't matter one bit because you're not sitting on the plane waiting.  You're outside it, waiting to depart, and hoping to make a connection somewhere else.  All you care about is if that plane takes off when they said it would.

Airline #1 says it'll turn the plane in 30 minutes, and has no 'cushion' built into its schedule.  Half the time it manages to have nothing happen at all and it pushes back at 1430.  GREAT!  It's got a competitive edge with an earlier departure.
But half the time something goes wrong.  Customers sit around a little miffed that their plane isn't taking off on time.  Some of them manage to even miss connecting flights.  The other half the flights manage to almost always get pushed back by 1500.

You've now effectively managed to p*** off half your customers.  You can be sure that your company's image and eventually your sales (i.e. load factor) will be impacted when your planes are departing late the majority of the time.

Or you can do what Airline #2 does and just schedule your departure for 1500.  They'll be covered for any issues 99% of the time, they'll rarely p*** off customers by delaying a departure, and if they can manage to take off earlier their customers will love them for it (can't do this in AWS).

In real-life the reward for a quicker turnaround isn't CI or LF, passengers don't think you're great because you can turn an 737 faster than the next guy (Southwest' model where pax often sit on the plane connecting is a little different).  The reward in real-life is monetary because you can squeeze an extra flight out of your planes if you can manage to pull it off.  All pax care about, the most important thing in the world to a flying passenger outside of perhaps safety, is whether or not you get somewhere when you said you would.  And if you're late half the time because you don't plan for anything to ever go wrong, they're not going to be happy.

[Riger]

......  The pilot knocks a knob off in the cockpit.

WTF !!  Surely he should be doing that in the privacy of his home ....  or at least in the lavatory !!

[Sigma]

WTF !!  Surely he should be doing that in the privacy of his home ....  or at least in the lavatory !!

That's the real reason they put doors in after 9/11.

[MRFREAK]

That's the real reason they put doors in after 9/11.

I knew it was a set up!! Damn those pilots are sneaky!

[swiftus27]

Qft sigma

[Jona L.]

The minimum turnaround time is just that -- the absolute minimum.

But things happen.  Crews don't show up.  The fuel truck runs a little late.  The catering guy is taking a smoke break.  The pilot knocks a knob off in the cockpit.  The passenger load has more families and elderly than normal and take forever to load.  Whatever.

Now imagine these two scenarios:

Airline #1 lands at 1400, says they'll take off to XXX at 1430.
Airline #2 lands at 1400, says they'll take off to XXX at 1500.

As a customer, you don't give a flying fart how long the "turnaround time" is.  Doesn't matter one bit because you're not sitting on the plane waiting.  You're outside it, waiting to depart, and hoping to make a connection somewhere else.  All you care about is if that plane takes off when they said it would.

Airline #1 says it'll turn the plane in 30 minutes, and has no 'cushion' built into its schedule.  Half the time it manages to have nothing happen at all and it pushes back at 1430.  GREAT!  It's got a competitive edge with an earlier departure.
But half the time something goes wrong.  Customers sit around a little miffed that their plane isn't taking off on time.  Some of them manage to even miss connecting flights.  The other half the flights manage to almost always get pushed back by 1500.

You've now effectively managed to p*** off half your customers.  You can be sure that your company's image and eventually your sales (i.e. load factor) will be impacted when your planes are departing late the majority of the time.

Or you can do what Airline #2 does and just schedule your departure for 1500.  They'll be covered for any issues 99% of the time, they'll rarely p*** off customers by delaying a departure, and if they can manage to take off earlier their customers will love them for it (can't do this in AWS).

In real-life the reward for a quicker turnaround isn't CI or LF, passengers don't think you're great because you can turn an 737 faster than the next guy (Southwest' model where pax often sit on the plane connecting is a little different).  The reward in real-life is monetary because you can squeeze an extra flight out of your planes if you can manage to pull it off.  All pax care about, the most important thing in the world to a flying passenger outside of perhaps safety, is whether or not you get somewhere when you said you would.  And if you're late half the time because you don't plan for anything to ever go wrong, they're not going to be happy.

Well... Lufthansa manages scenario #2 while having less TA than #1 .... They turn their B737 and A320 fleet in 15 minutes most of the time and still have very few delays... admitted on the long hauls they have decent ones (B744 has 3hrs in ORD or even 10hrs in EZE) but the majority of their flights is on 737 and A320 thus the majority of the super short TAs (given that AWS requires at least 40 minutes for the either) still work fine And I never before saw a CRJ-900 depart after 10 minutes TA, what Lufthansa demonstrated me

cheers,
Jona L.

[Sami]

They turn their B737 and A320 fleet in 15 minutes most of the time and still have very few delays

Ain't happening. Trust me, I know.

[Meicci]

A320 turned in 15 minutes isn't so utopistic. On the EFHK-EFKI route, Finnair has scheduled the turn-around to last only 25 minutes. I've seen while working at EFKI, that sometimes the plane arrives about 5 minutes late, but still leaves without delay. I think the fastest turn-around that I have personally witnessed, is 18-19 minutes.

But there are things to remember; EFHK-EFKI is only 45 minutes long, there's very few cabin service available, and the plane doesn't refuel at EFKI. So it just lands, taxi to the stand, people out, some small cleaning service, people in, and off we go.

[Riger]

A320 turned in 15 minutes isn't so utopistic. On the EFHK-EFKI route, Finnair has scheduled the turn-around to last only 25 minutes. I've seen while working at EFKI, that sometimes the plane arrives about 5 minutes late, but still leaves without delay. I think the fastest turn-around that I have personally witnessed, is 18-19 minutes.

But there are things to remember; EFHK-EFKI is only 45 minutes long, there's very few cabin service available, and the plane doesn't refuel at EFKI. So it just lands, taxi to the stand, people out, some small cleaning service, people in, and off we go.

This is very much the exception rather than the rule.

[Meicci]

This is very much the exception rather than the rule.

That's true, but it wasn't my point either. My point was, it IS possible to turn A320 (or A319 in the case I witnessed) in almost 15 minutes.

[Riger]

In the context of the OP's statement however ....

[jordanD]

The minimum turnaround time is just that -- the absolute minimum.

But things happen.  Crews don't show up.  The fuel truck runs a little late.  The catering guy is taking a smoke break.  The pilot knocks a knob off in the cockpit.  The passenger load has more families and elderly than normal and take forever to load.  Whatever.

Now imagine these two scenarios:

Airline #1 lands at 1400, says they'll take off to XXX at 1430.
Airline #2 lands at 1400, says they'll take off to XXX at 1500.

As a customer, you don't give a flying fart how long the "turnaround time" is.  Doesn't matter one bit because you're not sitting on the plane waiting.  You're outside it, waiting to depart, and hoping to make a connection somewhere else.  All you care about is if that plane takes off when they said it would.

Airline #1 says it'll turn the plane in 30 minutes, and has no 'cushion' built into its schedule.  Half the time it manages to have nothing happen at all and it pushes back at 1430.  GREAT!  It's got a competitive edge with an earlier departure.
But half the time something goes wrong.  Customers sit around a little miffed that their plane isn't taking off on time.  Some of them manage to even miss connecting flights.  The other half the flights manage to almost always get pushed back by 1500.

You've now effectively managed to p*** off half your customers.  You can be sure that your company's image and eventually your sales (i.e. load factor) will be impacted when your planes are departing late the majority of the time.

Or you can do what Airline #2 does and just schedule your departure for 1500.  They'll be covered for any issues 99% of the time, they'll rarely p*** off customers by delaying a departure, and if they can manage to take off earlier their customers will love them for it (can't do this in AWS).

In real-life the reward for a quicker turnaround isn't CI or LF, passengers don't think you're great because you can turn an 737 faster than the next guy (Southwest' model where pax often sit on the plane connecting is a little different).  The reward in real-life is monetary because you can squeeze an extra flight out of your planes if you can manage to pull it off.  All pax care about, the most important thing in the world to a flying passenger outside of perhaps safety, is whether or not you get somewhere when you said you would.  And if you're late half the time because you don't plan for anything to ever go wrong, they're not going to be happy.

Where would be a good place to draw the line? I shortened my turn around times to where I have about an 11% chance of delay and I was able to squeeze in a whole other leg to both of my aircraft, which is pretty huge, rather than them just doing two 900nm turns each day, I can get in a 200nm turn.

[Sigma]

Where would be a good place to draw the line? I shortened my turn around times to where I have about an 11% chance of delay and I was able to squeeze in a whole other leg to both of my aircraft, which is pretty huge, rather than them just doing two 900nm turns each day, I can get in a 200nm turn.

That's entirely up to you.

But if you can squeeze an extra flight per day, and that's a 25% revenue increase, and the drawback is that you have a 10% chance of losing 25% of your revenue because you cancel a flight, then it's probably, economically, a good idea to do it.