German DFS (Air Navigation Services Provider) published the DFS Mobility Report (German). No translation needed, I find page 14 of great interest to the airlines…

Where the first (such; most important) graph shows 54% of delays “caused” by the airlines, some airports working collaboratively with their partners (CDM) do a “flight clearing”, reviewing and correcting the delay reasons. Just focusing usually on the flight pair in question (incoming/outgoing flight), Frankfurt and Munich show only 39% and 44% delay “by the airline”.

Having discussed the issue with several airports doing flight clearing, the reality is even more to the airlines’ advantage.

What if an aircraft leaves Munich, with heavy snowfall and one hour delay in the morning. In the evening, it is to fly Hamburg-Paris (no snow at all). Will Hamburg understand the inbound delay and resulting outgoing delay as “weather” or will they simply assign it to “airline”? Guess my believe…

This is a nice example of a statistic without any value as it is compiled from systematically incorrect compiled data.

Food for Thought
Comments welcome