The problem with early flight arrivals

Some of the most common of the aggravations affecting air travelers is a flight delay or a cancellation. An early arrival of the inbound aircraft of their respective outbound flight is good news. It increases their chances of a timely departure. Not so good for the arriving passengers though if the ground staff is not ready yet. Which happened quite often to me - no one there to operate the air bridge or no one there to open the door from the air bridge to the terminal.

Not so good news for the airport as well, because early arrivals can be a disruption just like late arrivals.

Usually, airports plan for 15 minute buffers in their resource allocation (stands, gates). Fifteen minutes before Scheduled Time of Arrival (STA) and after. Sure, an early arrival helps when the airport endeavors short turnaround times. But if a flight arrives earlier then the planned buffer, it means that the airport has to cater for costly reserve capacities. Furthermore, there will be many changes affecting the operation.

What can an airport do against this? They can demand slot adherence, or the airline(s) will loose that slot and/or tell them that there will be no stand available. In a collaborative manner, of course, the airport will first approach them, raise the problem and discuss joint measures.

The problems with early flight arrival

My flight recently arrived early at an airport which completely surprised the place with no-one around to operate the air-bridge.

Does Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) address this problem? I would expect the ground handler to know what the estimated arrival time (ETA) of my flight will be. And, they should be ready when it does. With or without CDM.