What do flight times mean and are they for last check-in, doors closing or take-off?
HAVE you ever wondered what the flight times mean when you book a trip?
When you're looking at the departure and arrival times - is that the moment the plane door closes, when the aircraft moves away from its stand, or when the wheels leave the floor at take-off?
Similarly for arrival times, do the airline count themselves on time if the departure time matches touchdown, or is it when they open the doors for passengers to disembark?
Virgin Atlantic has explained to Sun Online Travel that the flight time that is published to customer is what they call the "block time."
This is when the aircraft pushes back from the airport stand, to when it "chocks on" to the stand at the end of flight - i.e when it’s stationary at the stand at its destination.
The language that airports use to describe a flight can also be very confusing.
For instance, if a flight is delayed, it has to be departing up to 15 minutes after its schedule departure time.
Even when a flight has "departed," it may not be airborne - it just means that it has left the departure gate.
When the plane touches down at its location, then it has "landed", but it hasn't actually "arrived" until the plane has arrived at its destination gate.
Yesterday, Sun Online Travel revealed the reason that flights these days are actually longer than they were in the 1990s.
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In March, we also reported on the different codes on your boarding pass - and how they'll tell you everything from where you'll sit to the grub you'll be given.
It can even reveal if you're likely to have a hard time going through airport security.
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