Originally Posted by
sciflyer
I'm on UA46 (IAH-FRA) tonight. I received a message that it was going to be about an hour late leaving due to a "late arriving aircraft." Delays always seem to get longer and longer until the inbound is in the air, so I check the preceding flight, which is 1502 from EWR. The scheduled arrival time of 1502 is 6:05pm (it will be 6 minutes late) and the scheduled departure of 46 is 6:35. Why on earth did UA schedule a 30 minute turn on an international-bound 767? They wouldn't let me schedule a 30 minute connect to an international flight (not that I'd want to, but still). Why would they schedule a certain delay?
They build ridiculous turn times into delayed aircraft all the time. I don't know why they do this, but I've had lots of amusement watching departure estimates that imply a/c turns of 20-30 minutes based on the estimated arrival of a delayed plane. One time I even said to the gate agent "who do you think you are, Southwest? You haven't turned a [fill in A/C type] in 30 minutes in your life". Not really fair, they don't set any of it, they're just the messenger (if that).