Originally posted by mitchja
I've actually always found bmi to be the worse out of the 3 airlines for delays. There have been numerous occasions when I've had 2 hour+ delays with bmi on domestic routes (both at MAN and at LHR). I can never understand how they end up getting such long delays on flights that only actually take 45mins.
It's actually a lot easier to pick up delays on short-haul ops, because you've got more takeoffs and landings and ground activity compared to long-haul work.
Think about it... once that SFO-LHR flight is launched, it's up for 10 hours. During those 10 hours, a short haul operation could fly 6 to 8 30-60 minute sectors.
Each time the short-haul flight is taking off or landing, it's exposing itself to takeoff queues, handling delays, holding in-flight, flow control due to poor weather at the destination, etc. This is how you end up with delays on short flights - and part of the reason RYR uses less busy airports, because they aren't flow controlled to the same extent.
Long haul flights aren't flow controlled to the same extent, mainly because of their long flight times, there isn't an overload or weather scenario in place which requires flow control.
It's also a matter of perception - a 30 minute delay on a 10 hour flight generally isn't much of a problem. You've also got an opportunity in the longer flight time to fly a little faster, take advantage of favourable winds, or try and get "shortcut" routing to make some time up.
A 30 minute delay on a 60 minute flight is a 50% increase in the time the journey takes, and it's much more noticeable.
Another interesting thing noted in Pete's list is the high delay on the BA MIA flight - I wonder if this is an interesting artefact of it being the only BA flight to operate from T3?
Also, remember, if it's just one or two flights an airline is operating out of an airport, it's easy for delays to become noticeable in the overall stats, but it's similarly easy to get it closer to 100% if you're really good. If you've got lots of flights operating out of the same place, you can hide the really bad performance amongst the better performance in an average statistic like this.
You almost want maxima, minima, mode, and standard deviation to go with a simple mean to make the stats more meaningful. Remember there are lies, damned lies, and statistics!
I remember a time at LHR when VS was 2nd worst in the ratings for punctuality, with Air India at the bottom. Worst of all was that these ratings were reflected in my own experience, for over a year, every VS flight I took was consistently delayed. Their dispatch reliability and punctuality seems to have improved since then.
The MAN/LGW fleet seems to be worked particularly hard at the moment, but I don't think it's that VS "don't care" about the B&S routes, as they must be a serious revenue earner for VS, it's just that they are having to make the best of the resources available.
Mike
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