why does it take so long to get out of Dublin Airport

Mailman

You arrive for your plane at 7.00 am or whatever, you are on the plane the doors are closed and you are good to go but it takes another 20 minutes to get pushed back before even taxi-ing to the runway.
I'm always seeing a delay - never a bish-bash-bosch and away we go.

The cruise speed of a 737-800 is about 820kmph according to wikipedia so going as the crow flies it's a one hour flight to Paris but journey time is more like 1h45.
A plane isn't earning when it's on the ground.
Please explain.

Danbo!

As for the delay after doors close it can be anything, but if your flight left from pier D it can take significantly longer than usual to get from the stand to rwy 28, more so if there is queuing aircraft.

diverdriver

O7:00 is the busy time. They could simply be waiting for a pushback tug or ATC might have held them at the gate for other traffic. Or they may have been waiting for their slot time. The question really is whether or not you were late arriving? If not then then it's a non issue. Either way they like to get the Pax on board and buttoned up as early as possible.

The last time I flew out of Dublin. It was during the ATC computer issue. We all duly filed on board only for an hour's delay to be announced. So we all sat there. They obviously knew there was going to be a delay so you might question as to why they boarded us so early. Of course the answer is that they wanted to be ready for a possible short notice pushback. The last thing needed would a major panic rounding up passengers from the various shops and bars.

Fratton Fred

I know that on the LHR flights the pilot is quite often waiting for clearance from Heathrow before they go, which can take some time.

There is also the added factor that airlines love pissing off their passengers of course:D

Davidth88

Fratton Fred has it right , often its ATC delays ahead.

Yesterday flying back from Prague.... sat on board for 30 mins because of congestion over Amsterdam .

LHR is the worst place for this , a little rain or anythign and it jams up solid. I remember being on an aircraft , doors closed , and then the Pilot says he cant even ask for push back for 1 hr, then we were no 30 in push back queue .... reason rain ! ( we eventually pushed back 2 hrs later )

This is why the schedules have a lot of slack built in , it's also the reason why FR fly to out of the way aerodromes where these delays often don't happen.

Yes it's frustrating !

Fratton Fred

Davidth88 wrote: »

Fratton Fred has it right , often its ATC delays ahead.

Yesterday flying back from Prague.... sat on board for 30 mins because of congestion over Amsterdam .

LHR is the worst place for this , a little rain or anythign and it jams up solid. I remember being on an aircraft , doors closed , and then the Pilot says he cant even ask for push back for 1 hr, then we were no 30 in push back queue .... reason rain ! ( we eventually pushed back 2 hrs later )

This is why the schedules have a lot of slack built in , it's also the reason why FR fly to out of the way aerodromes where these delays often don't happen.

Yes it's frustrating !

the trouble with Hethrow is that it runs at pretty much full capacity all the time, so as soon as there is poor vis etc and they have to increase the time between aircraft, it just fouls the whole thing up.

The people protesting about the new runway aren't going to be the most popular people with regular fylers:)

Tenger

Mailman wrote: »

You arrive for your plane at 7.00 am or whatever, you are on the plane the doors are closed and you are good to go but it takes another 20 minutes to get pushed back before even taxi-ing to the runway.
I'm always seeing a delay - never a bish-bash-bosch and away we go.

You cannot just close the doors and go. Airspace is extremely controlled by ATC. When the aircraft is reafy to geo it asks for permission from ATC. The sooner you are ready the sooner you can send that message,you cannot ask ATC to let you know when to ready for. That is why airlines try to ge pax on as soon as possible,at leas if a slot suddenly opens up they are ready raher than having to board pax then. You may have to wait until a 'slot' opens up 2 hours later for your destinaion even though the weather and /or congesion at your departure point is fine.

And DUB is becoming incresingly congested so someimes you wait onstand purely for the traffic on the ramp to clear so you can pushback and taxi out. Recently in DUB delays on the ground of up to an hour have happened due to DUB congestion and long taxis rather than the usual arrival restrictions.

Mailman wrote: »

The cruise speed of a 737-800 is about 820kmph according to wikipedia so going as the crow flies it's a one hour flight to Paris but journey time is more like 1h45.

Planes don't fly like crows. Aircraft follow strict pathways as defined by ATC so they are very rarely 'straight' flights. To generalise you often overfly London enroute to Paris,maybe go past Paris to turn and land towards the north east.

I have been lucky on DUB-MAN flights where both airports used an easterly runway with no traffic so quick 27 mins flight time. Scheduled flight time is approx 50 mins.

Mailman

Are the DAA doing anything meaningful to address the congestion or as a monopoly do they have any incentive to do so?
If they were able to get more throughput would there be extra flight slots available to rake up extra landing charges?

Tenger

Mailman wrote: »

Are the DAA doing anything meaningful to address the congestion or as a monopoly do they have any incentive to do so?
If they were able to get more throughput would there be extra flight slots available to rake up extra landing charges?

Well they are hoping to have a second runway by 2012,this along with T2 will increase capaciy. Dual runways should lessen the congestion on the ramp.

If airlines incur a lot of delays and therfore compensation they will stop flying to/from DUB, so yes the DAA has an incentive to deal with the congestion.

Mailman

Is most of the delay on the ground or in getting the slot all the way to the destination? i.e. is there a good possibility that a trip to Paris for example will drop from 1h45minutes to 1h30mins once the second runway and new terminal come on stream?