Wednesday 17 July 2013

Airport arithmetic

Here's a story in Mmegi about the on-going development work at Sir Seretse Khama International Airport.
"It is expected that the terminal will be capable of processing up to 900 passengers per hour".
900 per hour is 15 per minute, one passenger "processed" every 4 seconds. Assuming they'll have 10 immigration desks that means each passenger will be processed in 35 seconds with a 5 second delay between each.

Really?

Air Botswana's fleet of ATRs seat between 47 and 68 passengers each, let's assume an average of 60 per flight. I assume the SAA planes are similar. 900 passengers per hour is 15 planes per hour, one landing every 4 minutes.

Really?

At the passenger processing rate mentioned an entire plane load of visitors will be processed in 4 minutes.

Really?

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Infrastructure, Science and Technology has apparently told the Public Accounts Committee that "we are going to make sure that we do not make the same mistakes as before". 900 passenger per hour?

Really?

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