VS (lack of) Punctuality?

Hi all,

I was commenting to Pix about adding a "punctuality" rating into the trip reports section, because I thought that the on time performance of the 12 VS flights I've taken in the past year or so have been much worse than a greater number of flights with other carriers (often on similar routes) over the same time period.

Over those 12 flights, I think 3 arrived at the destination less than half-an-hour late, and two were over an hour late. The remainder were all delayed by 30-60 minutes.

I remembered being rather late for a VS flight once (about 5-10 minutes before the 1 hour cut off, taxi failed to show up), and one of the ground staff commented to me, "Oh, don't worry, our flights are always late!", rather matter-of-factly!

I happened to be looking at some CAA figures which prove that this isn't just my perception, but the above mentioned member of ground staff wasn't far wrong either...

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/80/punctuality/2004/200408_Punctuality_Statistics.pdf

To save trawling through, here are some usual cities I travel to (all Transatlantic), and how VS measures up against the competition, for flights arriving within 15 minutes of schedule:

LHR-BOS-LHR: AA 68%, BA 59%, VS 45%
LHR-LAX-LHR: AA 61%, BA 34%, UA 89%, VS 49%
LHR-MIA-LHR: AA 82%, BA 37%, VS 31%
LHR-JFK-LHR: AI 39%, AA 65%, BA 52%, UA 75%, VS 41%
LHR-EWR-LHR: BA 66%, VS 37%
LHR-SFO-LHR: BA 57%, UA 72%, VS 52%
LHR-IAD-LHR: BA 60%, UA 67%, VS 36%

What is interesting is that the American airlines are consistently putting in better ontime performance than any of the British airlines, and with the exception of LAX, BA always come out on top of VS.

With the exception of the SFO route, less than half of VS' flights arrive within 15 minutes of schedule, on all the Transatlantic city pairs flown out of LHR.

I wondered if this was just the "Heathrow effect", but the VS flights from Gatwick aren't much different (mostly around 50%), and in any case, why don't the US carriers have similar numbers to VS or BA?

I know these figures are taken from August, which is always a torrid month for the airports because of the extra load due to school holls, but at least one of my on-time VS flights was taken in August!

Sadly, it looks like the numbers do confirm my suspicions about VS flights not having great punctuality... [V]

I think this is an area where a big push would make VS seem much better compared to the competition! Surely they can beat big bad BA!

Cheers,
Mike

Interestingly I was on VS009 last night (TR to follow) - We left about an hour late - normal excuse, passengers not turning up at gate (although the loading was chaotic to say the least). Having said that we landed at JFK at exactly 20:52 - two minutes behind schedule - although I think arrival time is gate time?

Phil (Buffy)

Could this be a result of the VS flights being fuller than the other airlines or priority being given to the US airlines in allocation of closer gates at the US airports?

Or is it just down to the boarding 'scrum' VS seem to operate at LHR & LGW which has been raised many many times before.

Some US airlines undoubtedly benefit from the effects of having dedicated terminals in the USA. There is an undercurrent at LHR that BA always gets priority too.

VS does have a higher proportion of leisure travellers:-perhaps the sort of people more likely to find it difficult to turn up at the gate on time (unfamiliar airport, too much booze etc?) Actually I wish more people were offloaded in these situations -- it might teach them a salutory lesson [}:)]

BC

I disagree with you Blackcat- whilst many US carriers do have their own dedicated terminals it is also true that at 3 of the airports (SFO,BOS,IAD), all carriers are roughly in together so i dont quite agree with you this is especially true at SFO.

Whilst BA may get a supposed priorty i seriously dont see an AT controller sat at the LHR tower saying- BA 744 or VS 346 which one shall i let go first--o BA as its BA! Terminal 3 doesnt help the situation but given that UA and AA fly out of T3 VS cant use that excuse.

I personally believe that it is alot of airy fairy stuff being done by VS- there lack of co-ordination at boarding is a key factor, lack of off loading passengers also doesnt help. But its not only VS, alot of carriers at LHR and all round the world get delays and it is normally down to late arriving pax- perhaps VS need to get tough.

After thought- increased security cant really help can it. On a recent US trip (5 flights in 7 days) being in the 18-25 bracket and holding a UK passport i was subjected to intense (10MIns) screening at SFO,LAS,LAX,JFK,LGA and BOS thanks to 'ssss' being highlighted on my passport, whilst americans were walking through. Seeing as you could arguee that VS carry mainly British pax and UA/AA carry mainly Americans maybe this is reason! Or am i being too complex here?

I think stating the obvious is what consultants do about 80% of the time, but the obvious carried more weight when stated by an external 'expert'!

quote:Originally posted by airchabum
To myself and anyone else who works in Ops it's been obvious for ages why our punctuality is so poor but those who are paid far more than us have deemed it necessary to pay for a team of consultants to come in and tell us why our flights go late.

Oh no! They haven't fallen into that trap! [V]

Not listening to your staff who actually do the job is such a big rathole...

A "focus group" of regular VS travellers (maybe some FC members who fly a lot and have been known to make constructive suggestions to VS in the past), and representatives from relevant staff groups could probably do a better job - certainly at brainstorming solutions to a problem like this. You'd still have to leave some of the final decision making to "them upstairs".

Also, I certainly wasn't dissing the ops staff, who no doubt try keep the "plates spinning" as best as they can... just pointing out that the published figures confirm my worst fears about VS' on-time performance.

The problem with Heathrow is that it is so unforgiving with things like missed slots.

Cheers,
Mike

[fozzyo]

quote:those who are paid far more than us have deemed it necessary to pay for a team of consultants to come in and tell us why our flights go late.

Ahh yes .... that skill that only comes as you progress the corporate ladder. Its like the "Old People Volume" button on a TV remote. No-one else can get a TV that loud, but as soon as you turn 70 you find the special button that does it and wonder why you didn't see it before! Same for managers, except with them its the other way round - they loose the Common Sense Button.

To a certain extent I'm almost surprised that a Virgin company would take this attitude. But then i'm not surprised as the larger the company the more money that it costs the more weight it has behind it. Quite sad really - haven't these people ever watched BBC2's excellent Back To The Floor?

If you don't mind my asking, but what do airline Operations do? I know when its explained it will probably be mind-boggingly obvious - but whats the remit of what you guys do?

Thanks
Foz )

[RichardMannion]

'Focus Group' - I'm in, where do I sign - can I be paid in FC miles?

I think they already have this site to get the feeling of whats going on in customer world, if somethings not right one of us is sure to mention it (albeit in a constructive manner).

Yeah punctuality can be an issue, and yes it is normally due to the people that don't travel regularly that roll up late to the gate - as much I would like to say offload them and teach them a lesson, they are likely to -vely spin the story and we all know how many people will be informed of the 'bad' experience, even though they were incapable of arriving at the gate in adequate time. Its a tough one, and very hard to strike the correct balance - I don't really worry too much about punctiuality unless we are talking about a long delay or I'm going to miss a connecting flight - but in my experiences with this in realtion to VS, they have always made sure that I was okay.

Thanks,
Richard

Come on alan im waiting with baited breath!

Alan,

Way to go, superb piece of writing and very informative as well. Thanks.

As for the consultant budget, maybe £100K

Iain

Alan,
I do like good constructive critism, I think your comments were firm but fair.

It's a shame VS dont set up a forum with different players FF people from Ops Check in Staff etc as thats the only way to get things sorted!

Thanks airchabum for a very enlightening piece.

Consultants fees I would guess at about £ 400k plus expenses

[fozzyo]

Thanks for that airchabum, much appreciated.

Is VS having a bit of a fling with Outsourcing at the moment? Clubhouse service staff, load planning. From my reading of comments from the TR's there has been a noticeable shift in service due to this. And interesting that this is for apparent cost savings, and they then spend £69,312 (or however much they cost) consultants. Hmmmm.

Foz )

Generally the crew and flight deck crew are always ready to be at the a/c on time. However it seems common place that once you get to the stand the a/c has just landed from somewhere so we have to sit and wait while the a/c is cleaned, catered and security checked. The cabin crew have got used to preparing the a/c quickly and once all relevant checks are done we normally try to get boarding started in order to get on time departure. All non vital tasks can wait.

From a cabin crew members perspective the problems seem to either be one department not communicating with the other (who these people are am not sure but definitely a lack of communication at times) but by and large we are pretty much ready to go on time and then there will be passengers missing. I cannot stress how many times this happens. I always feel like getting all the passengers to give the late comers a round of applause as they board, sadly am not that brave! I am sure this happens to all other airlines too so is no excuse. Also we have quite a high amount of people who suddenly decide they don't want to travel. Obviously this creates huge security implications and major delays.

However, as I am full time crew I do have probably the most experience of our on time performance and honestly I can't recall the last time I was majorly delayed. If we have been late it's only been by approx 30 mins. Maybe I have just been lucky and I am not disputing the above stats. However I still believe we have improved our OTP dramatically over the last few years, certainly since I joined, just hope it continues to improve for all our sakes!

Alan, really interesting report into where you think the problems lie, thanks for being so open with us.

The continued underlying outsourcing current is slightly worrying, especially when it comes down to operationally important things... there's so much scope for communication problems.

It sounds like your IT systems are hindering, rather than helping VS as well. Some other airlines seem to have far more joined up IT systems, which help the front line staff immensely - like the reservations and airport customer service staff have access to live ops data, which helps them deal with customer questions about missed connections, etc.

I suspected this was the case during a recent delay, when I enquired with the Clubhouse staff why the flight hadn't been called yet, they said they didn't have any boarding info from the gate, and were waiting for them to phone up.

Out of interest is there a project in VS to join up all these disparate systems? (Or is this what they are paying the consultants to suggest?)

The other issues don't really surprise me, though I agree about VS being it's own worst enemy.

For example, how soon before departure does the gate start paging for missing passengers? Do they wait until they have called all the FC and Au pax from the Clubhouse, and then start scraping up the missing pax? If that's the case, it's probably too late in the day, especially with the long walks in LHR T3, or anywhere which requires bussing.

The other thing is getting the flights prepared to go on time in the first place, as if a pax sees or hears the word "delayed", they tend to drift off into the world of Duty Free shopping, the pub, fall asleep, or a combination of any of the above. They then miss calls for their flight and end up delaying things even more...

I know on UA (as I travel with them about as much as with VS), if you aren't through the gate and on board 10 minutes before depature for domestic, 15-20 mins on international, they remove the can with your bag in from the aircraft, pull your bag but keep it at the stand, and re-load the can. If you subsequently show up, the bag goes in the bulk hold, or the first convenient can with space. They won't wait until the last minute before pulling bags. They start the process off in enough time to try and get an ontime departure. Maybe VS should be a bit more ruthless, like this?

Looking at the issue with a family group which wants to sit together, surely the reservations/check-in system should realise that there is already a "group" and block out sufficent contiguous seats in the system, and stop check-in agents swiping them? Or is this down to the issue of fragmented IT again?

In response to SouthernBelle's comment about the delays not being bad, lots of 30-60 minute delays soon add up, if you travel as much as someone (Puts on Bob Mortimer voice) "like me" .

About the amount of time it takes to board and disembark from the aircraft - if VS actually used two jetways when they were available to them, they would load and empty aircraft much more quickly. What is it with VS' insistance to only use a single jetway connected to the L2 door? Just another way that VS are their own worst enemy.

I also acknowledge the point about getting the first flight away on time and hitch-free, because if this doesn't happen, it can have knock-on effects for the rest of the day.

Have these key flights been identified within VS and your partners (such as caterers, cleaners, ground handlers)?

Basically, if the people on the ground actually know that getting one or two flights away has a serious influence over what the rest of their day looks like, it's human nature to try and get those flights to go on time, so that your day has less chance of going off-the-rails later.

(Just for info in case people think that I'm just sprouting, I'll come clean... While I now work in the Internet business, I used to work in transport and hold qualifications in that field, rather than computing. I just shift IP packets rather than people or pallets these days. )


As for the consultancy fees, it's definitely going to be more than the amount VS are saving by outsourcing your load planning (and either laying off or "repurposing" your own load planners), or the Clubhouse staff. Grrr! [V]


Cheers!
Mike

Consultants charge a fortune a bank which will remain nameless is currently using the big city firm KPMG for some consultancy- in fact all they are doing is producing a powerpoint presentation to pursuade the unnamed bank to use them for a project they are doing. KPMG were invited by the bank and for the privalage are charging the unnamed bank $1million for the powerpoint presentation which is about 25 slides and for 4 staff working on it!!! And what makes it worse KPMG are sending none of there staff to the presentation- perhaps we are all in the wrong jobs!


Looking at the stats Alan it is interesting to note that BMI regional seem to be the top performer but none of the top really operate from LHR with or if they do they dont have to load a/c with extra food etc as its say brought on SAS flights from Sacnadinavia. Defending VS; BA arent much further ahead of us and one must remember all our flights are long haul- this means delays experienced in gaining a stand etc cant be made up in cleaning the a/c- we all have seen the mess a a/c is in on arrival after a 12 hour flight (noticably messier in UC). Maybe VS is just not allowing enough time for turn around. It is also worth noting that LCC's get round the delayed stats by putting in a fight time of say an hour as an hour and half meaning they always arrive early! The borading process doesnt help at all either- it has been widely reported here how much of a mess it is and to be frank it is. How long do VS allow for a turnaround- if i work it out correctly some a/c esp those leaving later in the day (LOS,DEL,PVG,HKG) are on the ground for a long time is this correct?

Any delay in this day and age is not really acceptable. Really the problem seems to be London- after all if an a/c arrives in the US late it will be tough for it to depart the US on time. THe number of times we have pushed back late then sat on the taxiway for take off is unbelivable- but i guess that comes with operating from some of the worlds busiest airports. Its not only LHR/LGW- i recently sat on the taxiway at LAX for 45mins on a TED flight due to atc holding us back- once we were airborn the flight to LAS was only 40mins!!! Myabe VS need to be stricter on off loading pax- i dont know.

Just looked at those stats Alan a very interesting read!

I think Ryan need to be applauded for what are very good stats indeed.

Its interesting that almost 2% of flights were >3hrs late on VS!!

quote:Originally posted by willd
they dont have to load a/c with extra food etc as its say brought on SAS flights from Sacnadinavia.

Not correct. SAS are catered at LHR by Gategourmet. Same as VS.

Cheers,
Mike

I saw quite recently on the VS website they were recruiting for Flight Despatchers (can't remember the exact name)with the job description saying they were responsible for getting flights off on time and managing load control amoungst other things. Also have seen jobs on there for Clubhouse staff based at LHR. Are these positions through other companies even though they are advertised on the VS website.

quote:Originally posted by mike-smashing

quote:Originally posted by willd
they dont have to load a/c with extra food etc as its say brought on SAS flights from Sacnadinavia.

Not correct. SAS are catered at LHR by Gategourmet. Same as VS.

Cheers,
Mike

Sorry my bad- but i was using it as an eg that foregin airlines can do quicker turnarounds at LHR than UK based carriers- making delays less common.

interesting thread - thanks for the insider info folks

To add my own experience, I'd agree that out of LHR I have nearly always had a slight delay, but coming home is normally okay.

I always factor delays into any connections I book just in case (a lot of the HP codeshares do not seem to have much slack in case of delays)

My last flight out of LHR was VS23, which had a three hour delay, due to a tech fault and a change of aircraft.

TO VS's credit, they kept us informed over the PA as to the delay, gave us £5 food vouchers, and when we finally boarded we each had a written apology, including a 10% refund on the next VS flight taken within 12 months.

Staff on board were also apologetic and did a good job.

quote:Originally posted by willd
It is also worth noting that LCC's get round the delayed stats by putting in a fight time of say an hour as an hour and half meaning they always arrive early!

Hi Willd,

I think all airlines are guilty of this little trick now;)Just look at the GLA-LHR flight time now as compared to 10yrs ago. With quicker aircraft it is actually longer. (BA's own stats)
Also how many times have you left 30-50 mins late but arrived on stand on time. tail winds don't just pop up!

Iain

Hmm,
Yeah I think you have a point..
most late departing flights I've been on have caught up most of the lost time..

I would imagine that a percentage of the flight time is added as a buffer otherwise most flights would have some delay!

Scary news is it's probably going to get worse with continued growth of air travel..