How time flies
The exact time taken for a DEL-MUM flight
5 -15 min time
1. Bay- The aircraft is parked here. That’s where boarding, ‘door close’ and ‘chock off’ takes place.
2. Boarding, Door Close This is the responsibility of the airport’s ground control operators.
3. Chocks Off Responsibilty of the airport’s technical team. The plane is in motion.
5 min-2 hrs time
4. Taxiing The airline is now in control. Depending on the queue, this could be a long wait.
DEL-MUM 2 hrs 15min time
5. Take Off Depends on the go ahead by the ATC. Once the nod is given, the flight time starts.
6. Top Of Climb Airlines cruise at a higher altitude to reduce fuel costs, thus increasing travel time
7. Top Of Descent the higher the aircraft flies, the less fuel it uses for its descent
8. Touch Down That’s when the aircraft touches ground. This is the time of arrival.
5-10 min time
9. Bay The aircraft parks here after touchdown and is handed over to the ground operations staff
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So what if the occasional airline goes bust? With more Indians taking to travelling by air, flying has never been easier. Just go online, book a flight and show up at the airport. The mystery for the modern-day flyer is not how the aircraft stays up in the air, but how flights manage to reach the destination, time and time again, ‘on time’ or ‘before time’. At least that’s what all airlines claim. Is our civil aviation industry so advanced that it has found a formula to reach on time? Or is there a deeper, more complex answer?
Every airline claims to be ‘on time’ but I’m not sure what that means. Who decides whether a flight is on time?
The standards for reaching ‘on time’ are set by individual airlines and not by a centralised authority. So the timings printed on the ticket are decided by airlines. No clear indication is given as to what the time of arrival actually signifies. Because of this, the passenger has no idea if the actual arrival is as soon as the flight touches down or once the flight reaches the bay or when it has been parked and secured with chocks. This ambiguity suits airlines—as a marketing gimmick some tell passengers they have ‘started on time’ when the doors of an aircraft are closed. But according to International Air Transport Association (IATA), the real ‘start time’ is when a flight is on the runway, preparing to take off. Similarly, aircraft are provided a ‘cushion time’ of about 10 to 15 minutes to land. So, even if a flight is 15 minutes late, records will say that it landed on time.
Should I care about being on time? And don’t the airport authorities have better things to do?
Well, the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the main authority overseeing civil aviation, is concerned mainly with passenger safety. Monitoring whether planes fly on time is not its job. It does not set standards regarding time claims. “It is consumer groups who need to be responsible for this,” says Mark Martin, who heads an airline consultancy. “Europe, Singapore, the US and several other countries have powerful consumer groups working towards creating rules, which help the flyer be more informed about these issues”. It matters, because airlines attract customers based on its ‘on-time’ performance. Shouldn’t consumers then have a way of knowing if the claims are for real or not?
I just go by the time on my ticket....
Most people don’t know what the time printed on a ticket signifies. Even airlines give different answers. GoAir says it’s the time between the closing of the aircraft’s door till the time it opens again. Jet Airways claims it is the time taken from take off to landing. According to IATA, the time given to airlines to finish the journey from ‘chocks off’ to ‘chocks on’, that is, from when the aircraft starts to move to the time the flight lands and stops moving. In India the DGCA refers to this ‘block time’, but even this varies marginally with IATA thanks to 10-15 minutes of ‘cushion time’ provided to airlines. But the time printed on the ticket may not strictly be the DGCA time, leading to confusion.
I’m already airsick with all these facts. What’s the difference between the ticket and the boarding pass?
Most airlines’ tickets show the ‘block time’ provided to the airlines by the (DGCA). This is not the actual flying time. A boarding pass, on the other hand, gives information about seat number and the time for boarding. Most boarding passes don’t mention departure or arrival time.
Does the time printed on my ticket include taxiing time?
The printed time should ideally include time for taxiing, but this is not the case. Once a flight leaves the bay, it may take anytime between five minutes to two hours for it to actually reach the runway for take-off. This time taken for taxiing is never mentioned to the flyer.
So then who decides the actual travel time and how?
To fly from one place to another, each airline needs to book air blocks with the DGCA. Say an Indigo flight from Delhi to Bombay wishes to schedule its flight everyday from 6pm to 8pm; it needs to apply to the DGCA for a block. The DGCA then allocates these blocks with the aim of maintaining smooth running of operations. The flight could be allotted a block of two hours and 30 minutes. Assume an airline completes its journey in two hours 15 minutes. Taking into account the ‘cushion time’, every flight could have said to reach ‘before time’.
What about time spent in the air? Can pilots make up time while flying?
Good question. Pilots may make up time in several ways while flying. The flight management computer (FMC) is usually used to calculate such decisions. A pilot may increase the aircraft’s elevation to a level where there is no air traffic. This gives them more liberty to cruise and pick the shortest route to a location. The only thing a pilot needs to do in this case is get ATC clearance. Of course, flying so high helps reduce fuel costs.
Aha! So do fuel dynamics play a role in reaching on time?
Back in the 1990s, a flight between Delhi and Mumbai took about one hour 20 minutes. The same flight today takes about two hours. According to Martin, this is mainly because low-cost airlines today want to cut fuel costs. The only substantial amount of fuel burnt in the flight process is when a flight ascends to the top of its climb. After that, to cruise as well as descend, a comparatively lesser amount is burnt. Airlines deploy a technique called cost index to plan how much fuel they can optimally burn during a flight. The FMCs help pilots decide the most cost-effective route to take. The machines also decide how long you will spend in the air before you land, as always, ‘on time’ or ‘before time’.
