When does a plane arrive/depart
 

I have been wondering, which time for departure/arrival is used to determine whether a plane is on time or not compared with timetables. Is it the time where the plane leaves the gate and arrives at the gate or is it the time where is takes off and lands? Or in other words, is a plane supposed to leave the gate at the time mentioned in the timetable or is it supposed to take off at that time? Similar in the other end, is it supposed to meet the gate at the time mentioned in the timetable or is it supposed to land at that time?

Times shown in airline timetables and on their flight status systems (web site, automated phone info line, airport monitors etc.) are gate departure/arrival times. The published schedules always include more time than the actual wheels up-to-wheels down flying time to allow for taxiing, minor ground or airborne holds, changes in wind, ATC-imposed flight speed restrictions, etc.

On sites like http://flightaware.com you can get the actual takeoff/landing times which can vary significantly from the airline's published or actual arrival & departure schedules.

The times in the airline timetables are gate times or boarding door close and open times. Otherwise connections would be all messed up. At a big airport it is sometimes a 20 min taxi if there is no line up for take off.

Look for a schedule where the airports are 30 min apart at RJ speed. The trip time will be about 1 hour. 15 min taxi on each end, plus the 30 actual flying time.

On time is a different item. I believe a flight is condsidered On Time if it arrives within 15 min. of its scheduled time. After that its Late.

That is correct by US DOT standards. Flights are considered late if they arrive more than 14 minutes after scheduled arrival. But if you're not looking at DOT numbers, check the fine print, because different people can use different measures. For instance, on our site (PriceGrabber), we show FlightStats on time information which counts arrivals more than 15 minutes after scheduled arrival as being late. Only slightly different, but it still will show different results.

It always stirs up a bit of confusion among the infrequent travelers when the FA's announce the flight time as the gate-to-gate time, and then when the captain comes on a few minutes later, he announces the flight time as the wheels-up-to-wheels-down time. I love looking at all the joyful faces of people who hear the captain and think it means the plane will arrive significantly earlier than scheduled, while I realize we'll have a potentially lengthy taxi and runway queue on either end.

Whoops! Never mind. I read the OP as *WHY* does a plane arrive/depart, rather than *WHEN*. :o :o

I remember some years back it came out in the MSP press that NW had a policy that planes would be pushed back from the gate on time, even if ATC had their takeoff delayed and they knew they'd have to sit on the runway. This let them claim an 'on-time departure', even if the plane took off much later than scheduled.

AFAIK that's still the procedure followed by all domestic airlines. And at least on AA, FAs aren't being paid until the doors close. This means quite a lot of incentive from all involved to push back ontime, even if a delay on the tarmac is unavoidable.

I remember many years back, I flew from ORD and left the gate at the scheduled time. Because of severe storms on our path, all traffic was held - and we sat on the taxiway AT ORD for 3 hours! But, we had an "on-time departure" - even though we were still at ORD 3 hours later. (At least we saw 1 1/2 movies and had dinner {remember those in Y? :confused: } before takeoff!)

The flight officially departs and arrives when the door is opened or closed. The flight time in the timetable reflects that...the actual flight time plus average taxi time. The actual flight time, given to you by the pilots and FA's once on board, tells you the projected time between take off and landing.

This kind of thing can be annoying when you have someone pick you up, and the wesbite shows the "on time" departure.

Gate to gate. I'm always a little perterbed when the FA announces an "early" arrival as soon as the wheels hit the ground. Its a sure sign that we'll be sitting in the plane another 40 minutes waiting for a gate to open up.