It doesn't make logical sense, if I land early, I might as well go wait in the pad, rather than slow all arriving traffic into the hub to meet a 10min landing window. If ground crews are not available when we land, that's not our job to supervise the ramp staff.

I think it's tied more to passengers getting irritated when we have to wait for gates rather than cost savings. Going to the pad vs slowing aloft saves fuel but if the goal is to "not wait for a gate" it doesn't accomplish that.

The passengers likely won't notice if we take 5 or 10 minutes extra aloft but if we make the "short of the gate" PA they notice.

I'm just guessing that's what they're trying to accomplish with this. They could just tell us to taxi slow...

How is that?

Any speed faster than LRC wastes fuel for the distance flown, as does running the engines while sitting still.

This argument is like debating over if we should haul ass and wait in the parking lot for the store to open, or drive a little slower and pull in right when it opens. Yeah there’s the off chance that the time we haul ass the overzealous employee opens up the store early, but not nearly as common as we hope.

If the company says be aware of your landing window and do what you can to land in it to help us out on the ground in LGA, ya know what? I’m gonna try. I’d much rather fly a bit slower and maybe make 50% less “we’re waiting on a gate announcements” and then have the whole plane growl at us on the way out

All Delta releases have a planned landing window. Delta is where the WARTS/NATS came from. Delta pilots have to put name tags on straight too. They have to provide customer service to promote the brand. They have to put name tags on straight and wear hats (by the book, not just at a mustache’s suggestion.) There is a lot more buttons on their blazers too. Maybe instead of cards on a necklace, they just remember to look at the paperwork...

Right on. Worst case, you still wait and you now have lunch money. If it’s Friday, it’s captain authority. On go home leg, I think all landing windows are forgotten

they provide customer service...now that is joke right there...but that is a whole different topic all together.

I'm not sure I can actually defend that.

I was thinking increased fuel flow in flight vs in the pad but to get to the pad early, you already had the increased fuel flow from the higher speed flight. So you lose twice.

Nobody is getting fired or a talking to for not doing what most people here define as “customer service,” which is likely limited to doing gate announcements and standing in the galley during the welcome PA.

When merited, gate announcements are probably helpful and take about 5 seconds of our time. Who cares. People on this forum seem to think that we are riddled with extraneous customer service responsibilities. I disagree.

What's the cost of mis-connecting 10 passengers because you flew 250 knots like SkyPest versus burning some extra fuel to get there early.

Maybe the landing window non-sense makes sense at a gate constricted airport like LGA or JFK, but in ATL, I'm not so sure.