Originally Posted by
Andy
In contract talks. What a perfect time for management to make it difficult/near impossible for on time statistics. It makes for some nice ammo in any lawsuit as to how pilots have been breaking status quo - just look at the statistics, your honor.
On the bus, lately it seems the best I can make up on a transcon is maybe 5 minutes by flying .as fast as possible the entire flight. I hit turbulence and have to slow down, there goes some of that time I made up. And if I get slowed down/vectors by ATC, I'll be lucky to be an on-time arrival.
Yes, they've definitely shortened the block times. But they've also increased gate and aircraft utilization rates. Arrive early and many times the gate's occupied because there are no spare gates. There's simply less slack in the system right now.
While I try to make sure I'm on time all of the time, I'm not losing any sleep over our performance numbers. All of that is well beyond my pay grade.
Dispatch doesn't give us add fuel to help make up for delays that aren't baked into the cake. We gotta fly fast to overcome some silly ramp issue or some silly computer program that holds the flight. of course the flights are gonna be late. But I am not dropping the hammer down if I ain't got the gas to do it.