You can't cheat time...anymore

Not so long ago, I, with the help of friendly captains, used to be able to do weird and wonderful things with time. Time wasn't fixed, it was flexible. Together with the right crew, we could create periods of time that never previously existed, and delete bits we didn't want others to know about. No, I haven't quite lost my sanity or turned into The Doc from Back to the Future, but just feeling nostalgic and recalling some memories from the older days.

However, the computers have ruined it for us. No longer can we work together to cheat the clock, for the clock sets the rules and requirements, and if we don't adhere to them then questions are asked. Questions from those above who wear suits and have never seen an aircraft apart from the one that rests upon the table in reception at Airline X HQ. Everyone knows how serious airlines are about punctuality, and now it really is right down to each minute and everyone falls silent when they hear the word ''delay.''

Let me take an example of what I mean. Not so long ago, an aircraft would arrive on blocks behind schedule at 1600. The minimum turnaround time would be 35 minutes for the aircraft, so as the clock strikes 1635 it should be offblocks. It's perfectly achievable in 35 minutes, MOST of the time. However, things have a tendency to go chaotic very quickly. There are so many links in the chain that the aircraft is relying on, that just one kink in it can end up delaying everyone and thus the turnaround.

Now let's say it has been a bad day, 35 minutes wasn't achieved and the aircraft actually goes offblocks at 1640. That's 5 minutes of a delay that has to be accounted for, whether it be down to crew issues, technical reasons, passenger handling etc etc. Generally, the airline will want the head of whoever caused the further delay on a stick!

But then here is where the magic came in. The aircraft was actually offblocks at 1640, but if we're at a down route station where the airline doesn't have any officials overseeing the operation, how are they to know what time it actually departed? They only know what time it departed from the times I pass onto them, and then eventually from the paperwork the crew file after each trip. So Captain A and I would work together and say the aircraft was offblocks at 1635. People in Airline HQ are none the wiser. And no one really takes any notice if there is 10 minutes between offblocks and airborne time, or if there is 15 minutes between offblocks and airborne time, so the 5 minutes we covered up is magically transferred into taxiing time and waiting for departure.

I liked to think of it as working together with the crew. Some days, my company would make mistakes and cause a delay, other times the crew would be late to the aircraft and cause delays. In either case, we'd both be chewed by our managers and the airline itself. As such, some days we would help cover them and in turn they'd have cover up our mistakes the next day. Similarly, if an aircraft was late on stand and we already anticipated it becoming chaos and not achieving the min turn time, we could start cheating early and round-up the onblocks time a few minutes to buy us some extra time.

Unprofessional? Perhaps. But for the most part we can no longer do it. The latest craze with airlines is a computer reporting system known as ACARS, or Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System. The days of cheating time are over. It logs everything automatically and sends it back to Mother HQ before we even get our hands on the information. The touchdown time, onblocks time, offblocks etc are all detected and sent off via radio to HQ so we can't edit times anymore.

It also logs the doors closed time on some aircraft. For if it was still late offblocks, we could have lied through our teeth smiling and said it was ready on time, but was delayed in moving off stand due to a magical reason that every dispatcher will have fallen back on at some stage in their career, Delay Code 89 - Restriction at departure aerodrome. This was generally another aircraft pushing back on an adjacent stand that prevented ours from moving. So the reality was there was some delay in the turnaround, the doors were closed late by a few minutes but we'd lie and say it was ready on time but Airline Y, the enemy, was pushing or arriving on an adjacent stand and thus we were off blocks late. But now with -ACARS, Airline X knows the doors were closed late, and won't accept our excuse! It's a case of there's no hiding anymore.

I fear I may be shot for revealing such information. Many of you will have some sort of timing card for work that you swipe on arrival and when leaving work, and there is no way of cheating it. In days of old, it may have been a sign-in book where you had to write you're time, so you could cheat. Airlines have gone the same way, and now every minute is recorded.

Any questions?

Next Information at...

We've all been there I'm sure, sat at the gate with one/two/three hundred other passengers, as the flight information screen shows your flight as Delayed or Next Information at... The staff at the desk are being berated by your fellow angry passengers demanding to know what the problem is and when they are eventually going to depart. The staff unfortunately don't have any answers which only further fuels the passengers' frustration. Are they just being lazy and unprofessional, do they have really bad news they're too scared to tell you, or do they actually know as much as you do?

I've been on both sides of the fence, experiencing the frustration as a passenger without information about delays, and also as the staff member being at the forefront, being bombarded by a mass of angry passengers. Not a pleasant experience, and so I'd like to explain it from our side of the fence so hopefully you better understand next time it happens.

Depending on which airport you're at and which airline you're trying to fly with, the staff may be employees of another company contracted to represent the airline at that airport. I don't think many passengers actually realise this, that for the most part unless your flying from an airline's hub or one of its larger out stations, chances are all the staff you encounter are employed by a separate company (hence the different uniforms.) They are there to look after you from check-in to departure, and unfortunately all the delays in between.

I work for such a company, contracted by airlines to represent them. I'm not a direct employee of an airline, I wear a uniform that is non-representative of any airline, just my own company. Some of my colleagues do have airline branded uniforms, as they'll tend to work specifically representing that airline in my company. But none the less, they work for a separate company. As such, we aren't always fully aware of what is happening at the airline with regards to delays and cancellations, until the airline decides and then tells us.

We are generally at the mercy of each airlines' operations department in receiving information. These departments lie concealed in darkened rooms, deep in armoured bunkers, filled with computers, marker boards and phones. They are never seen by the public, or even by me, and are staffed by a magical workforce of busy bodies keeping an airline running. Or so I like to think so, given the impression I get when on the phone with them. They're job is on a different stress scale than mine, I can only deal with one aircraft at a time, they're looking after a whole fleet.

So when a flight has a technical problem on the ground, even though I may be standing aircraft side fully aware of what the problem is, talking with the engineers and the captain, I can't always pass that information on to my colleagues to tell the passengers. I am all for giving the passengers all the information I know, but I can't or I'll be slapped on the wrists by the airline's ops department. In these times of small profit margins, and stringent compensation rules, airlines are reluctant to pay out compensation in the form of food vouchers, hotel rooms or refunds. As such, information that is passed onto the passengers is considered carefully, and isn't always available immediately, especially to us as a third party.

Technical problems take time to diagnose and then fix, and it's unwise to estimate the time involved as it'll likely be wrong by a factor of three. Operational problems such as crewing or aircraft rotation issues, constraints with enroute ATC or destination, poor weather, local airport restrictions etc happen regularly but every case is unique and as such a different solution is required. The first solution isn't always the best, so the most efficient (and safest, if that comes into the question) has to be found, but it takes time. So your sitting in the lounge, you can even see your aircraft sitting outside the window, but all you know is it's been delayed. Rest assured that the folk behind the scenes are working on a solution, but until they come up with one, there's no point in giving you infomation that will most definitely be inaccurate.

Believe me when I say, if each time there was a serious delay I could hotel the passengers for the day, I would. 200 tired, angry and frustrated people hanging around in your airport lounge tends to prevent your day running smoothly. But we can only start to organise hotels and accommodate passengers when we are authorised to do so by the airline. Getting them to do this is generally akin to getting blood from a stone. Kent Wein did an interesting post a few weeks ago about a 26 hour delay on one his flights, and makes interesting reading telling the story from the crew's point of view.

For any airline ops people reading, I am not attacking your hard work, and I realise that many of the decisions regarding what eventually happens are made by folk above you, rather than those who keep the whole operation ticking. But hopefully you can sympathise with the situation faced my end, with my colleagues on the front line left dealing with the passengers.

Anyway, I hope that gives you some insight to where the problems lie and why there is sometimes a lack of information. As Captain Dave would say, life on the line continues...

Well in my case, life on the ramp continues...

The easy shifts go wrong

It's a quiet evening in work and I only have two flights to dispatch, one is a day stopper leaving at 1800 and the other is a turnaround arriving at 1810. In theory that should be perfect, dispatch one and have time to spare as I walk to the next aircraft for its arrival. However, it didn't turn out like that.

I walk out to the aircraft an hour before departure to check how things are going. There are only five passengers booked for the flight, and already all five are checked-in and their suitcases are already loaded into rear the hold. The ramp guys can take it easy and wait inside in the warmth until we need the steps removed.

As I walk around to the left hand side of the aircraft I see something that always worries me, the engineers have the engine cowlings open and are working away in the dark with head torches. I ask them what's wrong and whether it's going to delay the flight. The news is bad, they can't diagnose the origin of the problem so can't make an estimate on how long it will take to fix once they find it.

The cabin crew are already on board prepping the cabin so I brief them about their busy passenger load and tell them to relax for a bit, as it doesn't look like the flight is going anywhere on time, but at least it isn't my fault.The flight crew arrive a few moments later, Starbucks coffee in hand, and speak with the engineers to see what's happening.

I inform my colleague looking after the passengers of the problem and ask them to explain to the passengers the flight is delayed and we'll have more information in about 30 minutes. As all five are sitting at the gate already waiting to board, my colleague goes round and personally tells them face to face rather than over the address system. All of them, surprisingly, are in good spirits and I'm told none of them know each other but are all mingling and chatting away.

Back at the aircraft, I've taken a seat in the cabin chatting with the crew while waiting to find out what the engineers find. We jokingly blame the last crew who brought the aircraft in for wrecking it. I enjoy these rare occasions where I get to chat with the crew while waiting on something that is out of my control, but soon I'm going to have to abandon them and head to my next aircraft. The only redeeming feature is that I remember reading about the International Space Station being due to pass overhead us this evening, and with the frosty cold and clear skies it should be a good view.

Sure enough, at the time the website said I spot a light on the horizon speeding towards us. If I hadn't known what it was, it could easily been mistaken for an aircraft speeding overhead except for the lack of strobe lighting. It appears AS a bright dot moving overhead, still catching the sun's rays but we're in darkness on the ground. The captain appreciates the sight, but the rest of the crew aren't bothered by it and continue hiding inside from the cold.

Murphy's law would suggest that as soon as my other aircraft arrives, this one will be fixed and ready to go, and Murphy's law was right. A few minutes before my other aircraft arrives, the engineers have nearly fixed the problem and say they'll need to do an idle engine run on stand to check everything is okay. The bad news is I can see my other aircraft rolling out on the runway, so it'll be on stand in a few minutes. Ensue- Dispatcher running madly across the ramp between non-adjacent stands to cover two aircraft. It wasn't suppose to happen like this, the night was so to be so quiet I'm the only dispatcher on shift. So the easy shift has now turned into trying to dispatch two flights simultaneously.

Eventually I get rid of the first flight about an hour later than scheduled and as one puffed out dispatcher. Running with steal toe-caps, many layers and a clipboard isn't easy and the cold has sucked the life out of my lungs.

Anyway, time for me to suit up and head to work for the rest of the day. I won't wish you happy holidays just yet, as I'm hoping to get another post in before Christmas Day to make up for the quiet few weeks lately.