MarkMyWords
Veteran
- Aug 20, 2002
- 1,900
- 1
PitBull and others.....the rolling hub effect takes the peaks and valleys out of the system. Instead of having 90 flights arrive in PHL in an hour, then sit for 30 minutes to allow for connections, then they all depart in 20 minutes, you will have a continuous flow in PHL. Put the idea of "banks" out of your head. Traffic will now flow at a consistant rate. Service to 'out" stations will increase as you provide service every couple of hours. In more popular destinations you can provide service every hour or 90 minutes.
Here is a snap shot of what happens today. Flight 100 is the first arrival in a "bank". The plane and crew pull to the gate and now the airplane has to wait for the other 89 airplanes to arrive to catch all the connections. So, if it takes an hour to get the 89 arrivals in, you have flight 100 on the ground for an hour....but you also have to allow for minimum connecting time. So when the lst flight is scheduled to arrive, you need to add 30 additional minutes. So now flight 100 will sit on the ground for 90 minutes before the airplane is back in the air generating revenue. If you can reduce the turn time of airplanes from 90 minutes to 35-40 minutes, you increase the utilization rate of the airplane, increasse revenues, increase employee productivity and lower costs.
Looking at it from a different prospective. I am an agent working gate C-25 in PHL. I am a full timer and work from 2-10:30p. I will work an average of 4 flights in my 8 hour shift. So I work at flight at 3, one at 6, one at 8 and one at 10p. With the rolling hub concept, I could have many more flights to work. I could have a flight every hour! So now I am working twice as many flights, utilizing the gate twice as much and making the employees twice as productive.
Look at it from a crew prosepctive. PitBull - I am sure you hear it all the time, how F/A's can't stand all the 2-3-4 hour productivity breaks that are scheduled into trip pairings. Part of the reason for this is because there are times that you (as a crew) will arrive on one bank and depart on the next. So you arrive and have to wait for one complex to arrive, then depart and the next to arrive, then you can depart. Imagine the 3 hour productivity break being a thing of the past because there are airplanes arriving and departing constantly.
Lastly, look at our costs associated with ATC delays. Many of the ATC problems are because we schedule for "normal" days. Between 8am and 9am we schedule 90 arrivals because the airport - on a good day - has an arrival rate of 90 airplanes an hour. What happens when we have to space out traffic because of reduced visibility and the arrival rate drops to 45? We now have to push some of that traffic into the next hour - thus causing ground delay programs and ground stops. Imagine if we could reduce those peaks and valleys. Steady out the flow of traffic in PHL. Now we reduce the likelyhood of ground stops and ground delay programs because the traffic flows more evenly. The same can be said for taxiing out. When you schedule a "banking" hub, you have all your departures leave in a 20-30 minute window. The first 5 airplanes off the gate get right to the end of the runway and airborn. But if you are number 90 off the gate, you have a lengthy delay for the runway. So the entire time you are off the gate you are burning fuel to sit in a conga line for the runway. You are also paying crews to sit in that line. If you are at the back of the line it could be 30 additional minutes before you are in the air. Now imagine the rolling hub. A plane leaves the gate every 5 minutes and average taxi out time is only 5-8 minutes. We save 23-25 minutes worth of fuel that we burn on taxi. We reduce block times for flights because we don't have to compensate for the lengthy taxi out.
Bottom line is we need to "grow" the airline again. It is my belief that the issue of overcapacity is bogus. WN eneters a market and because the product is priced right, they create demand. We can do the same, with the right cost structure and the right operation. Rolling the PHL hub makes sense because of the level of O & D traffic there. It wouldn't work as effectively in hubs like PIT and CLT. But I think you would also see additional flying in CLT and PIT also because you are utilizing the aircraft more efficiently.
Here is a snap shot of what happens today. Flight 100 is the first arrival in a "bank". The plane and crew pull to the gate and now the airplane has to wait for the other 89 airplanes to arrive to catch all the connections. So, if it takes an hour to get the 89 arrivals in, you have flight 100 on the ground for an hour....but you also have to allow for minimum connecting time. So when the lst flight is scheduled to arrive, you need to add 30 additional minutes. So now flight 100 will sit on the ground for 90 minutes before the airplane is back in the air generating revenue. If you can reduce the turn time of airplanes from 90 minutes to 35-40 minutes, you increase the utilization rate of the airplane, increasse revenues, increase employee productivity and lower costs.
Looking at it from a different prospective. I am an agent working gate C-25 in PHL. I am a full timer and work from 2-10:30p. I will work an average of 4 flights in my 8 hour shift. So I work at flight at 3, one at 6, one at 8 and one at 10p. With the rolling hub concept, I could have many more flights to work. I could have a flight every hour! So now I am working twice as many flights, utilizing the gate twice as much and making the employees twice as productive.
Look at it from a crew prosepctive. PitBull - I am sure you hear it all the time, how F/A's can't stand all the 2-3-4 hour productivity breaks that are scheduled into trip pairings. Part of the reason for this is because there are times that you (as a crew) will arrive on one bank and depart on the next. So you arrive and have to wait for one complex to arrive, then depart and the next to arrive, then you can depart. Imagine the 3 hour productivity break being a thing of the past because there are airplanes arriving and departing constantly.
Lastly, look at our costs associated with ATC delays. Many of the ATC problems are because we schedule for "normal" days. Between 8am and 9am we schedule 90 arrivals because the airport - on a good day - has an arrival rate of 90 airplanes an hour. What happens when we have to space out traffic because of reduced visibility and the arrival rate drops to 45? We now have to push some of that traffic into the next hour - thus causing ground delay programs and ground stops. Imagine if we could reduce those peaks and valleys. Steady out the flow of traffic in PHL. Now we reduce the likelyhood of ground stops and ground delay programs because the traffic flows more evenly. The same can be said for taxiing out. When you schedule a "banking" hub, you have all your departures leave in a 20-30 minute window. The first 5 airplanes off the gate get right to the end of the runway and airborn. But if you are number 90 off the gate, you have a lengthy delay for the runway. So the entire time you are off the gate you are burning fuel to sit in a conga line for the runway. You are also paying crews to sit in that line. If you are at the back of the line it could be 30 additional minutes before you are in the air. Now imagine the rolling hub. A plane leaves the gate every 5 minutes and average taxi out time is only 5-8 minutes. We save 23-25 minutes worth of fuel that we burn on taxi. We reduce block times for flights because we don't have to compensate for the lengthy taxi out.
Bottom line is we need to "grow" the airline again. It is my belief that the issue of overcapacity is bogus. WN eneters a market and because the product is priced right, they create demand. We can do the same, with the right cost structure and the right operation. Rolling the PHL hub makes sense because of the level of O & D traffic there. It wouldn't work as effectively in hubs like PIT and CLT. But I think you would also see additional flying in CLT and PIT also because you are utilizing the aircraft more efficiently.
