delayed planes passing through hubs

A

asl

Well-Known Member
I was supposed to meet my mum off a BA flight at 7pm today. It is a flight that was due to leave London at 9.30 this morning and then come back after a 1 hour turn. I checked BA's website and it said that the 9.30 departure is delayed until 2pm this afternoon due to a late incoming previous flight. So my mum won't be back here until about 11pm estimated.

My question is - Heathrow is BA's main hub, why don't they just pull another plane out of the hangar as a substitute to keep the Moscow return route on time? It is not even summer, so they must have some spare aircraft.

Wouldn't any other major airline do this automatically?
 
Nope! Kind of hard cost-justifying a 30 to 100 million dollar spare aircraft around the hangar!
 
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It is not even summer, so they must have some spare aircraft.

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Spare airplanes, some times you have them, some times you don't. Don't know what "not even summer" has to do with it.

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Wouldn't any other major airline do this automatically?

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Nope. But usually at a hub, which is also a maintenance station, airlines have many delays and maintenace downs every day. So if they do have a spare they must then decide which flight to use it on. One of the big considerations is how many downstream flights will be affected. But every day is different.
 
Not even summer is my observation that there seem to be more flights in the summer schedules, therefore I assume a higher aircraft utilisation, thus on winter schedules I'm expecting that there are spare aircraft in the hangars. Worked out what the delay is - it's the German's fault: plane was delayed in FRA, what's an "Operational Reasons" delay?

Anyway, my mum got squeezed onto the next flight now, which is the one after it that is now ahead of the delyed one
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Looks like it had to de-ice before take-off cos it took 35 mins from pushback to take-off and DME airport is not that busy. Going to get her in an hour, then staying away for a few, Happy Xmas to y'all
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it's the German's fault: plane was delayed in FRA, what's an "Operational Reasons" delay?

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Catch all. Could be anything to do with "operations" which is prety much anything.

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Anyway, my mum got squeezed onto the next flight now, which is the one after it that is now ahead of the delyed one

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Welcome to the airline biz. Of course that's the way things work. Every flight is dependent on the flight(s) before it to operate on time. No flight is an island, or something like that.

Merry Xmas.
 
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