Does a commercial passenger aircraft typically end it’s day at the same airport it started it’s day at? I realize weather, maintenance, etc… will have an effect.
Thanks,
For the most part, yes. There are alway exceptions of course.
No. An airliner often overnights at an airport that it did not start its day at.
Over the course of a few days An aircraft for Fictitious Airlines could do a routing like this:
Day 1: OAK-DEN-LAX-IAH-DEN-SEA (overnight)
Day 2: SEA-LAX-ORD-MIA-ORD (overnight)
Day 3: ORD-LAX-PHX-DTW-MSP (overnight)
Day 4: MSP-SEA-PDX-LAX-RNO-OAK
Day 5: OAK-HNL-SEA
Day 6: SEA-TPA-IAH-BUR
Day 7: BUR-DEN-BUR-DEN-SJC-BUR-OAK
Exceptions do occur. If an airline only has one of a type of aircraft (e.g. the original Braniff had only 1 B747 for a long time) then the aircraft will end the day at the airport it started from (in Braniff’s case, the B747 operated DFW-HNL-DFW).
One of the requirements in routing aircraft is that they should go to a maintenance center once every few days. In the example above OAK is the maintenance center for the fictitious airline so each aircraft is scheduled to be routed through OAK every few days.
Often in the case of hub-and-spoke airlines the aircraft will often make its last flight of the day to an outstation (i.e. the end of a “spoke”) so that it can make a flight to the hub first thing in the morning.
Doh
Read the question, Jim… What rw said…