Originally Posted by
darthbimmer
The delays in pushback, taxi, and baggage delivery have more to do with the airport and time of day than the airline operating the flight.
Yes, airport and time of day have much to do with these delays. But so does intentional scheduling.
In hub airports (like PHX), the majors very deliberately schedule many flights to depart at exactly the same time. This often exceeds the capacity of gates, baggage, and catering services. Since PHX is not a hub for WN (and they operate on more of a point-to-point model), their departures and arrivals are more staggered than AAs.
The majors pad the schedules because they know that the odds of an "on time" pushback and takeoff are considerably lower when the number of planes they've scheduled to take off > the capacity of clearances and services.
The point I was trying to make in my original post is that WN did deliver a less hassled experience than AA-- and that people sometimes lose sight of the upsides to flying WN. Maybe my trip was a once-in-a-lifetime miracle, but I thought a bit of good was worth posting about.