With runway construction ongoing at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and taxi times longer than normal Delta Air Lines is turning to creative approaches for improving on-time performance. Among them, a “D-5” campaign that seeks to have flights depart five minutes early from more than 40 airports when headed back to the carrier’s primary hub.
The D-5 early departures schedule adjustments have resulted in significant improvements to our on-time arrivals in Atlanta, which means our customers and crews are better able to make connections in our Atlanta hub. The initiative has yielded more impact than anticipated, added +3 points of ATL inbound A0 since implementation, giving us line of sight to No.1.
We have implemented as many schedule changes as possible to help account for construction. However, we are extending the early departure initiative in order to fully overcome the challenges posed by construction and remain the most reliable, on-time airline. The extension will last through Oct. 31.
The program has run for the past seven days and was expected to end on Wednesday. That timing will now be extended. In an email sent to inflight crew on Tuesday and reviewed by PaxEx.Aero the carrier announced that it would extend the program at least through the end of the month. Among other things, the company is adjusting the preflight countdown clocks on crew tablets to the D-5 timing, helping to drive the earlier departure goal.
Map generated by the Great Circle Mapper - copyright © Karl L. Swartz.
Beyond the inbounds departing a bit early the company is also choosing a limited number of Atlanta peak hour departures to leave five minutes ahead of schedule. These flights are specifically chosen to avoid tight connections for passengers or crew, according to the briefing.
Given that the gate officially closes 15 minutes before departure for domestic departures this move should not have too large an impact on passengers. Still, it does increase some pressure to complete the boarding process, including potentially having gate agents be more aggressive about gate-checking all bags in later boarding groups rather than waiting until the bins are reported full by cabin crew on board.
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