At PER QF terminal at the moment, nothing seems to be moving -or at least not much - because of fog.
Thank you suze2000 for this and subsequent updates: nothing beats an on-the-spot reporter.
One consequence was that QF576, the 0805 hours PER - SYD (B738 VH-VXG) took off at 1013 with arrival expected at 1559 instead of 1415: 104 minutes behind the schedule. Yet QF642 (A332 VH-EBS), the 0945 hours PER - SYD took off at 1011 and is virtually running parallel (though south) of QF576 and should beat the latter into SYD by three or four minutes.
On routes with any sort of a half-decent frequency, it can become a lottery when there are weather events as to which flight gets you there first. It is not always the earlier flight, but as one other poster surmised above, there is no way of knowing until the fog sufficiently clears as to which would have been the 'best' choice.
In these circumstances when there are say 10 flights ready to push back (perhaps even with the door(s) closed), is it solely ATC that determines which goes first, second and so on or does the airline liaise with someone at Airservices and say 'hey fellas, our MEL-bound A332 has 30 per cent more passengers on board than the same destination B738 so any chance of the former being prioritised for pushback and the consequent takeoff roll?'
QF762, the 0815 PER - MEL took off at 1022 and should arrive about 117 minutes late at 1542: aircraft is A332 VH-EBJ.
QF1803, the 0905 hours PBO - PER that took off at 1043 is an example of many mining-related flights that have been delayed. Often these QF, VA and other flights are very punctual but with 22 August's arrival of B717 VH-NXE expected at about 1224 (94 minutes late), today is an exception.
