Originally Posted by
SchmeckFlyer
Why not pad the schedules even more? Aircraft should depart (i.e. depart the airport, not the stand) on time and when scheduled.
I would like to propose that all scheduled times of XX:50 minutes flight duration be padded more to (XX+1):05, in order to cause them to move over the threshold of when business class/first class is permissible under some travel policies. E.g. LHRSFO=10:50=
; LHRLAX=11:05=
And from my post in another thread (sorry, didn't see this one):
It's unfortunate that pushback seems to be the measure of punctuality. It would be more useful if punctuality was measured by "wheels-up" times, thus allowing management to focus on all the other causes of missed punctuality ("where's the tug driver", "APU's not working, waiting for some jump leads", "waiting 30 minutes for a slot even though we pushed back at T-5", or "waiting to cross active runway" etc.) which are conveniently ignored.
If the objective is to claim X % punctual "departures", then sure, pushback is a good measure. If you're trying to get your passengers to their destinations on time, then wheels-up would be a much better one.