"Operational Requirements"
 

Hi all,

I saw the only slightly one sided story about Tiger on 7 tonight. We flew with them last year, and while everything turned out OK for us, they did change the time of our flight 4 times in the months before the day, with it eventually landing in Melbourne 2 minutes before we were due to depart Canberra.

I'm wondering if someone could please explain exactly what are these famous "operational requirements" we always hear about as justifications for airlines changing their schedules? I can understand particularly with older fleets aircraft can go unserviceable at times, just like any other vehicle, but that usually causes a last minute re-scheduling, not several changes over several weeks.

Not picking on Tiger here, but isn't their whole fleet brand new? Surely they don't have very many mechanical issues? I've flown Qantas and Virgin many times before, and (fortunately I guess) never once had a flight time changed.

Personally I'd be happy to fly with them if I had no particular time I had to be at my destination, but I will never fly with them to a meeting or connecting flight. But only because of "operational requirements" of course!;)

Operational Requirements is a general purpose excuse ;)

Could be anything... turn around times having staff at the airport for less time, earlier turn around meaning they can squeeze another flight in for the aircraft for the day, that sorta stuff.

It could be one was out for planned maintenance and they had to rejig their schedule.

Or they just decided that the earlier time sounded better. :D

So, basically.. could have been anything!

New aeroplanes don't necessarily break down less often - might be a different sort of breakdown to older ones. This is more a cause of 'on the day' schedule changes (ie delays, cancellations, diversions) than 'in advance' ones.

Advance schedule changes may also come from a rejigging of aircraft cycles.
For example: under the 'old' schedule you might have had Aircraft 001 going A to B to A to C to A and Aircraft 002 doing A to C to A to B to A. Under the 'new' one 001 goes A to B to A to B to A and 002 does A to C to A to C to A. Still the same number of flights to each port, but if the sector lengths are different obviously the timings will change for the later ones.

I do Like Owen's explanation though: "Operational Requirments" as the general purpose excuse. It sounds technical enough that it works for most passengers! :D

Operational Requirements = Your flight attendant slept in due to the daylight savings time change. :D

David.M.

Thankfully I've never slept in.

Ya gotta laugh....this is from todays news:

Might have something to do with the fact that two Tiger a/c were sitting in ADL (at the old domestic deconstruction site) yesterday around noon!

David.M.