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My airline indicated that the door of the aircraft (B787) had been opened a little over 1 min after arrival at gate at a major airport. Is that possible?

How long does it usually take from "on block" until the cabin door is opened in case of a wide-body jet and what would be the absolute minimum?

(Background: Due to EU's Air Passengers Rights Regulation, for this flight the airline would have to pay several hundred dollars more as compensation to each passenger if the door opening had taken 3 min or more, as the next delay tier would have been reached.)

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  • $\begingroup$ The airline is not going to pay out "hundreds of dollars" for an extra delay of just a minute or two. Even if you're strictly correct, I doubt you could get a court to order it. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 26 at 16:40
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    $\begingroup$ @CatchAsCatchCan I guess you're talking about the US. In the EU, there are codified fixed compensations for certain long-haul flight delays, defined by time of door opening: EUR 300 for 3:00 h to 3:59 h delay, EUR 600 for 4:00 h and more. That's how even one minute can make a 300 EUR difference. The European Court of Justice confirmed this in preliminary rulings. So there might be an interest to give an earlier opening time. $\endgroup$
    – user83314
    Commented Aug 26 at 17:00
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    $\begingroup$ @airborne321 Sounds like a pretty strong incentive to open the door as quickly as they can, consistent with safety. $\endgroup$
    – Chris
    Commented Aug 26 at 18:30
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    $\begingroup$ @Chris: Some doors are already able to open immediately after takeoff, a definitive solution to avoid compensations. $\endgroup$
    – mins
    Commented Aug 27 at 11:26

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What's possible? Well, aircraft stops rolling, parking brake set, engines shut off, seatbelt sign off, door disarmed, door cracked open, "in" time captured. Total time from wheels stop to door cracked, a few seconds, like less than 10.

That assumes the flight attendant at the particular door is aware & ready to open it immediately upon hearing the seatbelt sign chime. Entirely realistic, but not always the way it plays out.

What policies an individual airline has about what else needs to happen before the door is opened, is its own question for each carrier. But the limit of what's possible is, very little time has to elapse.

Edit, in response to comments:

The ACARS system captures the "in" time based not on the door being fully open, but simply unlocked -- swing the handle and maybe an inch or two of travel on the door. It still looks like it's closed & in place at this point, but that's what triggers the system.

What else is supposed to be in place before the flight attendants do that is a matter of policy, not the aircraft systems. If you want to ask how long to move a jetway into place so that it's touching the aircraft first, that depends greatly on the jetway itself, its initial position, and the operator. In some cases, well under a minute; in others, a couple of minutes. (And, if you have to wait for the jetway operator to show up... that can be quite a while!)

When you need to add to the captured time however long it takes before passengers "can" deplane, or when the first passenger does deplane (intervening PA announcements can take a minute or several), that gets way beyond the discussion of the aircraft systems themselves, and other than a time-stamped video of what happens at the entry door, I don't know how that would be captured with accuracy and precision.

But yes, from the time that the aircraft stops rolling, a second or two to set the parking brake, a glance to confirm that the APU is powering the electric busses, another second or two to shut down the engines, and you reach up to turn off the seatbelt sign and then signal to the ground crew "engines cut". Total time easily in the 5 seconds ballpark when everything flows normally. (Reading the checklist afterwards takes far longer than 5 seconds, but the seatbelt sign is off as part of the captain's flow, before the checklist is called for.)

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    $\begingroup$ Don't forget the time to set the jet bridge, because for safety reasons the door can't be opened prior the bridge is secured (and the point is the passenger can't get out freely without the steps, so the clock is still ticking). $\endgroup$
    – mins
    Commented Aug 26 at 19:04
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    $\begingroup$ So the cockpit crew manages to run all items from full stop to seatbelt sign off in about five seconds? LOL. $\endgroup$
    – Jpe61
    Commented Aug 26 at 19:43
  • $\begingroup$ @mins The door can't be opened, or shouldn't be opened? Because if I were a flight attendant and we knew we were minutes away from a big delay bill, I'd be standing right next to the door and pop it open an inch or two as soon as the shutdown was completed, and then I'd wait right there for the jet bridge to reach us. It might not be technically by policy or even legal, but to avoid a big fee? Everyone in the area would look the other way. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 26 at 20:45
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    $\begingroup$ @DarthPseudonym: Passengers cannot be allowed to use the door prior the bridge is secured, according to the safety rules and law, perhaps also the contract between the airport and the operator, the operator responsibility would be bound for the consequences. Anyway the UE regulation looks for the time the customer can leave the plane. The operator can claim the time the door is opened is the end of the trip, but a judge would tell him this is not sufficient. $\endgroup$
    – mins
    Commented Aug 26 at 21:03
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    $\begingroup$ Right, so that's a "shouldn't". It's not a physical impossibility to open the door early just to stop the clock. Whether the law would agree that such a clock-stoppage is valid or not isn't relevant here, because the only way the law gets involved is if somebody lodges a complaint against the airline, and generally a complaint would require actual damages and some kind of evidence that the airline actually did break the time. Even if they stopped the clock early, there's every chance that the jetway was in fact fully in position and ready to use within the ~3 min the OP says they had left. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 26 at 21:18

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