"Airlines need to comply with consumer law" - ACCC

[MEL_Traveller]

no 30 mins early. It's just a schedule which means the airlines will hardly even be late, all designed to meet on time performance. It's been going on for decades.

Accept that. Currently airlines might 'pad' MEL-SYD by 10 or 15 minutes. But the OP was suggesting adding another 30 mins on top of that, so that for all intents and purposes, the 'official' published schedules would have the arrival time at gate and departure time for the next flight as being the same (that is, a 'zero' minutes published turn-around). This would be unprecedented and no airline does it.

There may be a second set of books (a second 'actual' schedule) which the airline uses for ATC and airline staff. They 'know' the 800am arrival frmo MEl will acutally come in at 730. But that doesn't help the passengers on the flight who are organisaing people to pick them up at the scheduled arrival time... and they're left hanging around the airport for 30 minutes.

Nor does it help with connections. QF already schedules 1 hr connections DOM-INT at SYD. Anyone going to be happy with a 30 minute connection? Or in reality it means everyone now has to leave a full 30 minutes earlier than they otherwise would have.

 

[Frequent boarder]

Accept that. Currently airlines might 'pad' MEL-SYD by 10 or 15 minutes. But the OP was suggesting adding another 30 mins on top of that, so that for all intents and purposes, the 'official' published schedules would have the arrival time at gate and departure time for the next flight as being the same (that is, a 'zero' minutes published turn-around). This would be unprecedented and no airline does it.

There may be a second set of books (a second 'actual' schedule) which the airline uses for ATC and airline staff. They 'know' the 800am arrival frmo MEl will acutally come in at 730. But that doesn't help the passengers on the flight who are organisaing people to pick them up at the scheduled arrival time... and they're left hanging around the airport for 30 minutes.

Nor does it help with connections. QF already schedules 1 hr connections DOM-INT at SYD. Anyone going to be happy with a 30 minute connection? Or in reality it means everyone now has to leave a full 30 minutes earlier than they otherwise would have.

ozflyer nailed what has been going on for years & will continue to go on. It's all to stop anyone complaining about arriving late & to stop any frivolous compensation like in EU if a flight is a few minutes "late". What is late ?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

ozflyer nailed what has been going on for years & will continue to go on. It's all to stop anyone complaining about arriving late & to stop any frivolous compensation like in EU if a flight is a few minutes "late". What is late ?

Zero published turn-around has not been going on for years. Padding yes, but that's probably why airlines are getting away with 20 minute scheduled turns.

EU261 does not provide any compensation for being 'a few minutes late'. You have to be up in the multiples of hours before compensation kicks in.

 

[ozfflyer]

Zero published turn-around has not been going on for years. Padding yes, but that's probably why airlines are getting away with 20 minute scheduled turns.

EU261 does not provide any compensation for being 'a few minutes late'. You have to be up in the multiples of hours before compensation kicks in.

no one is talking about zero turnaround times, just padding of schedules to ensure that most of the time, flights arrive on time(whatever that means) even when they depart late. Padding of timetable in EU reduces any compensation.