When planes ran like buses?
 

So I've been idly reading through and I've got a question. The timetables therein suggest 15 min turnarounds at airports, and each journey is made up of several different connections (so London-Amsterdam-Hanover-Berlin).

It occurred to me to check if this was a peculiarity of European travel in the very early days of commercial flights, but American Airlines had the same sort of deal. This shows arrival at Buffalo at 1824, leaving at 1836. Assuming, people were getting on and off at Buffalo, how on earth is 12 minutes enough time? The image I have in my head is of people queuing on the tarmac like a bus stop, the plane lands, a few get off, and the rest get on, and the plane takes off again, but that can't be feasible.

This might belong more in the Old Timers thread and I'm hopeful some of them will spot this thread (although I might need Very Very Very Old Timers :D). I'm just wondering if anyone has any insight, something obvious I've not considered.

Interesting, had to look up "sleeper berth" on a plane

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_T-32_Condor_II

Old Timer checking in here. Although 1934 was a bit before my time, it's worth noting that planes were smaller back then. We're talking 10-20 passengers for the most part, none of them lugging aboard bulky carry-ons as is the norm today. Indeed, airplanes offered only hat and coat racks. Also, here in America at least, I believe the passengers themselves were smaller and more fit, capable of getting on and off those old tail draggers with considerably more vim and vigor than that exhibited by many of the plus sized examples we see today.

I've seen Central Airways 10-stop DC-3 schedules between Ft. Worth and Denver where some of the stops were scheduled for only five minutes. The rural communities served by these flights (such as Muskogee, Oklahoma or Lamar, Colorado) had only a small building for a terminal and planes would park practically right outside the terminal doors. The plane would land and pull up to the terminal, some passengers would get off, a few would get on (during which time the few bags were efficiently off-loaded and on-loaded) and off they went. It was not unheard of for the Captain and First Officer to step out and lend a hand with baggage handling if necessary.

Check out this view of the airport serving Grand Rapids, MI circa 1938...

A DC-3 landing at a smallish (Buffalo-sized) airport, taxiing over to a small building, unloading and loading 10-15 passengers with the help of a couple luggage guys, taking off again...seems like they could do it in 12 minutes without too much trouble, especially if they aren't taking on fuel...

I have an OAG from 1963 (essentially a book containing each airline's printed timetable), and have been amazed by the local-service airlines of the time saying that, in the absence of published arrival times at a station, the ground time of a DC-3 was 3 minutes, and for a Convairliner it was 5 minutes. I suppose if you're using a 20 or so passenger plane, there's no refueling and no catering, it would be possible to offload a couple of people and their luggage and board a couple of new people and load their luggage in three minutes at a remote station such as Liberal, KS or Saranac Lake, NY.

By the way, a look at the schedules shows those old piston planes worked hard in terms of the number of cycles they did in a day. I'm guessing it would be pretty common for the Convairs to go through 12-15 pressurize-depressurize cycles in a working day.

Learned a lot from here. Good job guys.

I've had the pleasure of flying in a de Havilland Dragon Rapide a couple of times. It was lovely, and I can well imagine hopping around Europe in it. It really doesn't take more than a handful of minutes for the last set of travellers to leave, and the new set to board, even if it is a surprisingly uphill walk! And, in this case, no First Officer. Just Biggles up in the single pilot's seat.

Incidentally, London-Amsterdam-Hanover-Berlin would have had the Rapide running on fumes, so it would have had to have been refuelled at some point. I'm not sure whether this would have been done from a mobile bowser or at a gas pump. (I've fuelled planes from a gas pump before now, but only light aircraft.)

That is exactly right. I traveled many trips by DC-3 involving four or five stops from origin to destination at cities similar to those. There might have been one station agent who sold tickets, checked in passengers, waved in and chocked the airplane, unloaded and loaded baggage, closed the door, and waved the plane off.

A year or so ago I flew YBL - YQQ - YVR on a Beech 1900. Total ground time at YQQ was probably 6-8 minutes.

Tks guys, so my suspicions were basically confirmed, this was a real "quickly get on the plane when it arrives" sort of deal. My favourite route in the book is probably the Air France flight London-Siagon, via 9 overnight stops (hotels included), and taking a week a half to get there. Just 10 grand in today's money!

But imagine if you missed this week's departure from Jodphur! How do you explain that to your boss :D

Regarding pax, the irony is that in my experience the slowest deplaning pax are seniors taking their sweet time. I imagine back in those days they weren't that many retirees flying either.

Hey, some of us seniors (I turned 60 last year) do not move quite as quickly as you 40-something whippersnappers!

Now GET OFF MY LAWN!

When you a few times every week, it becomes as routine as taking the bus to work.

very quick on/off 9 pax Cessna 402 with https://www.capeair.com/
(speaking of types of planes, 402 is unpressurized twin piston)
there are similar airlines, some use general aviation terminals
including 'commuter' flights which sometimes have stops

It is not just a thing of the past. In recent years I've been on one stop and also multi-stop (milk run) flights which only have 10 or 15 minutes scheduled time in transit stop(s).