Scheduled flight departure times

[ScotHill]

If a flight is scheduled for 15.00, what does that mean? It’ll be 15.00 when the doors are closed, when it leaves the gate, when it starts its takeoff, when it leaves the ground?

And afterwards if it says ‘departed 15.09’, what action is that timepoint taken from?

[egomeister]

As far as I understand it, the scheduled time is when the plane is expected to push back from the gate (and therefore the 15.09 in your example, it pushed back 9 min behind schedule).

Gate open/boarding closed times are pretty arbitrary depending on the size of plane / airline / airport - a matter of policy not schedule.

[ScotHill]

So landing times are likely when it arrived at the gate?

[egomeister]

ScotHill said:

So landing times are likely when it arrived at the gate?

Good question! I suspect not - I think that would be on touchdown. Somewhere like Charles de Gaulle or Schipol you could easily need another 10 min to get to the gate. You have got me thinking now though!

[egomeister]

Just tracked one coming into Heathrow - the arrivals page on the website updated to landed while it was still on the runway, so that confirms touchdown not gate.

[zbc]

egomeister said:

Just tracked one coming into Heathrow - the arrivals page on the website updated to landed while it was still on the runway, so that confirms touchdown not gate.

Airport websites are another story altogether. Regularly track planes coming into land at Luxembourg (which seems to be particularly bad). Often they have clearly landed and are at the gate and the website still says "expected" at some random time in the future.

[Magnum 475]

The arrivals board at BHX frequently shows 'Landed' when they're a couple of km from the runway. They seem to assume that at that point the aircraft will land rather than going around.