Hi all,
Yesterday I flew EGBB EINN in the dash. On the roster the planned flight time was 1h15m
However, when you use the regular airways you have to make a considerable detour to the north via WALvor
or the south via the BCN vor. That makes the flight over 300 mi and with the prevailing westerly winds nearly impossible to fly on time.
I barrelled all out but had tot land on rwy 06 in Shannon due to the prevailing wind, adding some 30 mi to the flight.
Am I doing something wrong or is the schedule (too) tight?

Gert

Hi Gert, the schedules are generally accurate (sometimes I put some extra time in to absorb delays) but there are occasional ones that catch me out with circuitous routing, and I think this is one of them. This leg probably needs an extra 10-15 minutes scheduled. I'll see how I can add this without messing the rest of duty 45 up! In reality I think you'd probably absorb the delay on other sectors, but it would certainly be stressful!

As you've discovered, flights between Birmingham EGBB and Ireland EIxx are difficult since there are no routes over Wales. There are a few sectors suffering similar problems, particularly those from London City EGLC to Southwest England, because the London City SIDs force you to fly in the wrong direction for quite some time! It's going to be a long job to update them all because adding 15 minutes to a few flights will change the whole schedule, and a lot of later flights already arrive near the end of airport operating hours.

Generally you have very good on-time performance (OTP), so don't worry too much about my scheduling mess ups! If you find any other flights that need significantly more scheduled time, let me know 

Hi Chris,
thanks for the reply. If I find other flights I will notify you.
BTW, if a leg is estimated too short, I don't know if you can compensate on other legs, because you have to return to the hub first and that will double the overtime...
Thanks for al the work you put in the airline!!

Gert

London City is partically bad as yu have to avoid all of the other London traffic.


Take a look at my latest report, I had to fly past the airfield to the north, to come back on myself to pass it from the south to then finally turn onto finals for 09!


http://viaintercity.com/pirep.php?pirepid=3451