Clock Watching
The Age
Saturday July 12, 2003
It does not rate on the Richter scale of life-changing experiences but one of the most amazing events in my travels, not so long ago, was strapping myself in for a Virgin Blue flight from Melbourne to Brisbane when, five minutes before our scheduled departure, the aircraft began moving from the gate. We were airborne a few minutes later.
I can't remember that ever happening on a domestic flight in Australia.
Frequent flyers will attest that the standard routine is that, on a good day, boarding usually finishes five minutes after we are supposed to be away. Then we sit for 10 minutes. The wheels do not leave the bitumen for another 10 minutes or so and, if we are lucky, we arrive at the other end within about 15 minutes of when we were supposed to be there, thanks to the padding in the official schedule.
In the 1990s - the worst days of the congestion at Sydney airport, which rippled through the whole system and could cause flight chaos as far afield as Cairns and Perth - many business travellers began flying to Sydney the night before their morning meetings because they could not rely on getting there on time.
The construction of Sydney's third runway was supposed to cure all that. And, with the demise of Ansett, now Sydney never handles more than about 55 take-offs and landings an hour (it used to peak in the high 70s), when it is officially allowed to take 80 and, technically, could do about 130.
So much for the theory. The Financial Review last weekend quoted Qantas's internal punctuality review for the week to July 1, which showed that only 42 per cent of flights between Melbourne and Sydney took off within three minutes of schedule and the overall average for domestic was 37 per cent. (It was admittedly a crook week, with fog in Sydney and Melbourne on several mornings.) However, Qantas says 72 per cent of flights left within 15 minutes of schedule.
Virgin claimed that the percentage of on-time departures in June was "in the high 60 per cent range and that was not one of our best months". Whatever happened to 90 per cent or better, the figure that most airlines want to shoot for?
Qantas boss Geoff Dixon certainly is not happy and is expecting an improvement. Qantas sources told the Financial Review that one of the problems was the growing complexity of the Qantas fleet, which now has no fewer than six different types of jet aircraft (more if you count the regionals) and many more different seating configurations.
That means that, when things break down the part may have to come from one of six or more different inventories and sets of engineers.
Ironically, that is the criticism that was once levelled at Ansett, which, at one stage, seemed to have at least one copy of every plane ever built. Qantas, on the other hand, always boasted that it had the simplest fleet - 737s, 767s and 747s. Now it also has Boeing 717s, Airbus A330s and super-jumbo A380s on the way.
Virgin has no excuse, as it has just one type of aircraft, the 737, and all are nearly new. But it has also grown away from its roots as a point-to-point discount airline. It is now discovering the trials of being a network carrier, with more and more passengers travelling over multiple sectors and more and more business travellers to please. If they have just paid $1000 or more for a ticket, passengers do not expect to be left at the gate because aconnecting flight was late.
clivedorman@hotmail.com
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© 2003 The Age
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