Originally Posted by strowger

Certainly the way delay tends to build up over the day - with the morning departures generally on-time and the late afternoon ones often not - supports this.

I have observed that there is a lot of sloppiness to the operation though. The modern day disease of poorly-motivated people with no power to improve anything operating processes that don't work etc. Lots of stuff that could be improved - excruciatingly slow handling of passengers at the gate at LHR, various ground handling (steps/busses/baggage handlers) not ready when the aircraft arrives, etc. Non-timekeeping-related aspects of the organisation also show this sloppiness - for example summoning passengers to the gate at MAN with "final call" when the aircraft is still taxiing out at LHR.

They are great (IME) at rebooking automatically and appropriately after causing misconnects, shame they have to do it so often.