Video answers: ‘How airlines schedule flights’

Here are the answers to last Friday’s video, enjoy!

Suggested ICAO level for video: 5+

They’re so common because there are so many airports around the world that it’s impossible for the majority of them to be connected to each other by direct flights.
After the cost, passengers usually look for the shortest connection times when selecting their flights.
It organises this hub into ‘banks’ of time when first, lots of flights arrive, then secondly, and within a two-hour period, lots of flights depart. This minimises the amount of time anyone waits for a connecting flight.
They can’t operate in a similar way to American because these ‘banked’ hubs are much more expensive to operate.
Etihad’s hub in Abu Dhabi operates with only two big banks per day, minimising the amount of time connecting passengers have to wait. Eastbound flights land and depart Abu Dhabi during one bank, and westbound flights land and depart in the other big bank.
The disadvantage to this extreme version is that their plans spend a lot of time sitting on the ground.
These flights are usually expensive because the planes have to spend a lot of time on the ground to fit into most airlines’ ‘banks’.