> It's definitely faster to load, but usually you have to take a bus to the plane, which adds a lot of time and hassle that you don't have with a gate.
Ah, that depends on the airport. Haven’t been on one of those in a few years; I think Ryanair and friends managed to grab a lot more proper gate space during Covid when the higher-end airlines were practically giving it away.
(Years ago, I was on a Ryanair flight to Brussels airport which used a jet bridge, because it’s mandatory there… But the jet bridge was in the middle of nowhere, served by a bus. Half-convinced Ryanair does this sort of thing deliberately, to live up to their brand image of being quite annoying.)
> but perhaps loading/unloading is not the critical path anymore in turning around the airplane.
It _definitely_ is, at least for short-haul stuff.
Ah, that depends on the airport. Haven’t been on one of those in a few years; I think Ryanair and friends managed to grab a lot more proper gate space during Covid when the higher-end airlines were practically giving it away.
(Years ago, I was on a Ryanair flight to Brussels airport which used a jet bridge, because it’s mandatory there… But the jet bridge was in the middle of nowhere, served by a bus. Half-convinced Ryanair does this sort of thing deliberately, to live up to their brand image of being quite annoying.)
> but perhaps loading/unloading is not the critical path anymore in turning around the airplane.
It _definitely_ is, at least for short-haul stuff.