Comments

1. After an explosive decompression somewhere near Honolulu on United Airlines flight 811, nine passengers were sucked out of the aircraft. Unlike American Airlines, after this fatal incident, United Airlines never reported that “nine passengers and the cargo door of the Boeing 747-122 departed the aircraft on February 24, 1989.”

2. The Delta flight from NYC to Atlanta has less than 800 air miles, so getting there in less than two hours gate to gate is not spectacular but it does show that the congestion on take off and landing was maybe minimal. What the timing does show is a lot of padding on the schedule so as to make arriving on time easier.

3. The Delta pilot may have been fast relative to the scheduled block time, but as jns said – not that impressive as an actual gate-to-gate time. The DOT Ontime database (commercial flights back to 1987) has 848 LGA-ATL flights with a faster time than his 1:55, including 5 flights in 2023. The fastest recorded LGA-ATL gate-to-gate is an AirTran flight on 7/18/2005 – it was delayed 3 hours and departed at 12:07am, making the run in 1:24.

4. @jsn and Al:

   Exactly… I’ve had morning flights into LGA or JFK where weather was perfect and we flew right in no holding and arrived an hour early. I had a JetBlue JFK-LAX last year where we were off the ground in 7 minutes from pushing from the gate (the pilot said he’d only ever experienced that at 9pm a couple of times). Landed at LAX almost 75 minutes early (and waited an hour and a half for a gate).

   Once upon a time at Midwest Express we flew DC-9s and even an MD-80 between Madison and Milwaukee. The pilots there did actively make it a speed run. If the runway configurations were correct, one could pretty much take off from Madison on the 6am flight, make one 90 degree turn and you were essentially lined up for MKE. Record was like 22 minutes gate to gate in a DC-9-10 which probably was like 16-17 minutes in the air.

5. That envoy pilot actually messed up big time.
   He did the work of another union job that could be considered scabbing.
   He will probably be punished for that.

6. You’re not setting actual records, or in the running to be doing so, until you have the conversation with your fellow pilots along the lines of “Hey we’re making good time right now but can we agree to be proactive in not having the FMC alert us to approaching over-speed or our structural maximums”

   I remember a red-eye BA flight from JFK-LHR a few years back that had some amazing tailwinds and I seem to remember they set a new TATL record which PR where eager to tell the world about. I think the flight crew referenced not exceeding the above or risking the plane or pax just to set the time a good four times in every piece I read or heard regarding it.

7. AndyS

   You have no idea what scabbing is or how unions actually work.

8. Is that even allowed to be so early? It will interfere with flight schedules and with air traffic control schedules. Sorry ,It’s not your time to land.