V-Flyer

I am flying on VS001 on Thursday and out of boredom I have been watching this flight in the flight status recently...DOES THIS FLIGHT EVER LEAVE ON TIME?? The punctuality rate seems awful!!

Depends what you mean by 'on time'. It would be a miracle if every flight left the gate exactly at its scheduled departure time,

I see lots of departures within 15 mins and more within 45 mins departures.

But I am also seeing a lot of ontime and early arrivals (even on late departure flights)

Don't forget there has been some pretty serious weather over the US recently too.

And not all delays are down to VS.

rickj2802 wrote:I am flying on VS001 on Thursday and out of boredom I have been watching this flight in the flight status recently...DOES THIS FLIGHT EVER LEAVE ON TIME?? The punctuality rate seems awful!!

According to the Schedules tab in the Toolbox there were only 3 late arrivals - those of over 45 minutes late into EWR in August and to date there have been 3 in September but over the period where Irene was wreaking its havoc.

I don't think departure time matters - it's arrival times that counts. I have been on flights that have been scheduled to arrive before the curfew at LHR because of favourable winds etc and the flight has been held back from departing because of that.

You have also to remember why a flight pushes back later than scheduled. The last time I was on the VS1 the door was closed and we were ready to depart well before time but it was ATC that held us back at the gate. We were initially told there would be a delay of 45 minutes but the captain managed to parlay it into a delay of 20 minutes - and we arrived 30 minutes early!

I actually don't believe all the information in the schedule section to be correct...On June 9th it is reporting that VS001 left LHR at 16.15 and arrived at EWR at 18.57! this is totally incorrect as I was on the flight!! I know Virgin cannot be blamed for the weather, but this flight was diverted to Boston to re-fuel and we finally landed at EWR just after 10pm!! so why does it say on the schedule section this flight landed at EWR at 18.57??? do you see my point!!

You don't belive the information to be correct (because of one particuular date you have direct experience of) yet are prepared to use the same information to say ALL VS01 flights never take off on time?

Did your flight land at BOS at 18:57? That might explain the glitch in the arrival time?

But TBH the schedules are only as accurate as the data provided anf there will always been errors and (as with lots of things) past performance is not always an indication of future performance.

rickj2802 wrote:On June 9th it is reporting that VS001 left LHR at 16.15 and arrived at EWR at 18.57! this is totally incorrect as I was on the flight!! I know Virgin cannot be blamed for the weather, but this flight was diverted to Boston to re-fuel and we finally landed at EWR just after 10pm!! so why does it say on the schedule section this flight landed at EWR at 18.57??? do you see my point!!

Very simple.

The landing data supplied comes from the on-board wheel-down sensor. When the wheel makes contact with the runway, it records and sends back the time to VS. It doesn't know or even care which runway and to change it means it has to be manually corrected by flight ops. Hardly a priority.

I think those of a certain age will remember when all advertised flight times were much shorter. Nowadays, the timings factor in expected delays both in getting up in the air and in getting back down on to the ground. A slightly delayed take off isn't really an issue these days to be honest.

Just to sort of reinforce what 'Donkey' was saying above, flight timings now include taxi times dependent on airport, ATC etc.

For example, on the VS website the VS3 (LHR-JFK) states that the flight duration is 8hrs 10mins. Whereas if we take a look at the actual flight time this is only 6hrs 54mins, leaving a good 1hr 16mins to allow for any delays in pushing, taxiing etc. Obviously depending on jet streams / head or tail winds this can vary, but as a rule of thumb average...

Source: http://www.travelmath.com/flight-time/from/LHR/to/JFK