Scheduling longer flight times can make a difference in on-time arrivals. (Image: Jim Glab)
Do you ever pick one airline over another because it has a better record of on-time flight operations? Those statistics might not be as solid as you think.
An interesting article in The Wall Street Journal explores how Delta’s current number-one ranking in the Transportation Department’s on-time arrivals listings was achieved in part by “padding” its flight schedules with a little extra time.
The Transportation Department defines an on-time arrival as one that gets to the gate within 14 minutes of the arrival time shown in its schedule. If it gets there one minute later than that, it’s considered late for statistical purposes.
The article notes that Delta has increased the “cushion” in its flight schedules every year for the past seven years. The result? It went from an on-time arrival rate of 78.6 percent in 2009 to 86.5 percent for domestic flights last year, the best in the industry.
Do on-time arrival statistics make a difference to you? (Image: Jim Glab)
The analysis notes that because airlines are free to set their own schedule times, it is possible for flights of two airlines from point A to point B to take the exact same amount of time from gate to gate, but one could be on time while the other is considered late because it estimated a shorter flight time in its schedule, while its competitor padded its schedule with a few extra minutes of estimated trip time.
The Journal noted that since Delta has done so well with it scheduling strategy in terms of its on-time record, United has started to adopt the same technique (more WWDD!), padding its schedules by an average of nine minutes in 2015 and 10 minutes in 2016.
By contrast, American’s average domestic flight has a padding of just four minutes, and the flights of Hawaiian, Alaska, Virgin America and Spirit “are the stingiest on padding schedule minutes,” the article notes.
Have you noticed the padding? Is it fair? Please leave your comments below.
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The airlines can do what they want with their schedules. However, when they pad their schedules, their operation becomes less efficient, and theoretically they are missing out on revenue possibilities. AA (from the US days) keeps block times shorter in an effort to keep planes in the air more, where they are making money. It’s a balancing act to keep the operation running smooth and bringing in the most bucks. With the economy being relatively strong right now, you see more airlines padding their schedules to boost their #s. As soon as a downfall hits, they will be doing everything they can to bring in that extra revenue, even if it means lower on-time performance.
Arrive early = good feeling. Arrive late = bad feeling. Customers bond when companies exceed expectations. Sound marketing.
Delta takes a BIG risk though because customers may book based on elapsed time. They trust that 35-minute connection at O’Hare. I think that they are crazy but that’s the way it goes.
Actually that is not the definition of punctual that most people use. Getting me to my destination “on time” or “early” is not my top priority IF that scheduled arrival time is totally artificial and contrived to be such that an airline is never “late”. Nor if it is contrived to try and appear higher on some league table
Put it this way. Airline A says the flight time is 5 hours and regularly arrives an hour early. Airline B says the flight time is 4 hours and regularly arrives on time. Airline C says the fight time is 3 hours and is regularly late. By your argument, A is the “best” although, in reality, they all take the same time.
“Reliable” means a lot more than just how much a schedule is padded to arbitrarily increase the percentage of times that an airline is technically not “late”.
The big three US airlines all have had terrible profitability and they have all gone bankrupt at least once. They all run old planes with jaded cabin crew. Trying to argue that one is better than the other is like arguing the merits of McDonalds, Burger King and Wendys, while ignoring high-end restaurants. People have their favorites (usually based on their location) but, having flown them all a lot, I’d say that is highly subjective. I’d rather take Virgin or JetBlue than any of them, and I’d rather fly most foreign airlines than any US airline. And Delta is near useless in any city that isn’t a Delta hub.
If you think Delta is a great airline then you need to get out more. If Virgin America, Emirates or Singapore could run Delta’s domestic routes, nobody would choose Delta.
1) Everything that I write is my opinion. I do my best to base those opinions on undisputed facts but I always welcome informed debate. Actually, I quite enjoy it.
2) I think you misunderstand the words punctual and reliable. An airline that gets me home at or before the promised time is, by definition, punctual and reliable. You seem to want to redefine common English words.
3) Delta has been the most profitable of the US big 3 airlines for several years in a row. If that’s your idea of “not fiscally sound”, then I suggest you are very confused.
I fly all airlines. I don’t feel vested to the idea of one airline is somehow “better” than any other. It really depends what is important to you, and that varies by person. For some, it’s cost, for some, convenience, for some frequency.
For any it’s just the historical accident of where they live. It’s hard to avoid United if you live in SF, hard to avoid Delta in Atlanta, and so on. I don’t much enjoy flying SWA but their business model works and they have often been the only profitable airlines.
And being profitable matters in the long-term, or you end up like Delta running a fleet of crappy old planes
That’s not always true. Airlines can choose different flight paths – generally the longer the flight path, the more options there are for variance. So for instance, on Trans-Atlantic flights, some airlines try and focus on a faster flight (perhaps to get back on schedule) whilst others look to reduce fuel costs or flyover charges.
But it sounds llike you’ve got a “thing” about Delta and won’t hear anything else
Presenting your personal preferences as undisputed facts isn’t any more helpful than inflating flight times to make it appear that your airline is the most punctual and reliable when it may in fact not be.
The real problem here is the common trend that once a metric becomes important, people try and game that metric rather than actually improve performance. We see this all the time with pay-for-performance targets.
But if all you are saying is that airlines with more bloated cost structures can appear to be better, then I might agree. People love the ME3 airlines but then it doesn’t really matter whether they are fiscally sound or not, because nobody is counting the beans
geez, Kirk, just trying to explain the system to you. Come back tomorrow and we’ll tell you about the ATPS and the Global Distribution System.
I don’t ignore cost.I’m the first person who mentioned that this is very expensive, and I did a detailed cost calculation in another comment. Anyways, I’m done explaining this to you. I’m very pleased with my airline choice. Don’t like it? I couldn’t care less
First you ignore cost then you refuse to look at the economics within the system. Its a function of a “yield management” system. Your anecdotal observations are worthless. And you give yourself away below with “speed.” Its time, not speed, that controls the system. RichLL is correct.
I see no evidence that Delta flights are significantly more expensive than other airlines. So you’re wrong again. They simply have a very loyal customer base and are able to fill larger planes without discounting. That makes up for the additional costs
no, they pass along the cost. They have to meet ROI.
I thought the airlines had been doing this for years. Anyway, I rarely look at on-time percentage when I book a flight. I do look at total travel time, so if an airline pads its schedule to add time, that means it’s less likely I’ll book them. The less time, the better.
Entirely positive for the customer. I love it when airlines spend money to make me happy! That’s a WIN. Everytime
Above you said “I said nothing about mixed blessing. I see it as entirely positive.”
Wow, you just don’t get it. Airline A is cutting corners by using a rapid-turnover tight schedule. Airline B is spending extra money to operate a lower-utilization padded schedule. It is ABSOLUTELY a genuine comparison. Airline B is better. They are more reliable, more on-time, and have happier passengers too. They win EVERY category. It’s true, fares may be higher at airline B. Passengers have to decide if they want quality or garbage. I will gladly pay for quality everytime
False. I’ve had Delta flights arrive an hour early. Nowadays, planes fly in congested corridors, one right behind the other. They all fly the same speed (there are no passing lanes in these corridors)
True, SWA tries to keep costs down by having a very high utilization of its planes/crew. Because of that, when things go bad, delays cascade rapidly at SWA. As I have stated several times now, padding lowers utilization, and is therefore a significant expense to the airline. That’s why I salute Delta, their industry-leading on-time performance is not a random fluke. They spend enormous amounts of money to make that happen. Once again, I like airlines that spend money to improve their performance. This concept seems so foreign to you, I’m guessing you are a United flyer.
Except where (1) and (2) work against each other, say by leading to higher prices or longer wait times at airports.
I was looking at ORD-DUB flights the other day and American is blocked at 15 minutes less flight time than Aer Lingus. I’m not going to choose based on flight time, for a non-stop, but the actual flight times do not vary, only the schedule.
There’s another problem when airlines do this for longer-haul flights. The planes end up having to fly slower in order to ensure they don’t cause extra airport congestion at their destination, and have to way for a gate.
By that argument the airline should bok 2 extra hours for the flight just so you can “stress free. But of course that comes at a cost – you have planes hanging about at airports for longer and that’s a particular problem with SWA as theyw ant to turn planes around in 20 minutes
There are some plus points but also some negatives:
1) It doesn’t help doing genuine comparisons between airlines because comparing on-time arrivals becomes useless
2) By blocking longer flight times, the airlines has to deploy more planes to achieve the same level fo schedule. That could mean you pay more
3) An airline might have a better record for punctuality and reliabilty and you’d never know
Exactly! And the Delta passengers will very pleased while the customers of the other airline will be frustrated and angry. How dare Delta spend money to please its customers?!
I think you should read my post again. I made 2 points: 1) Padding is very expensive. 2) Padding is very good for customer. Therefore, an airline that does this is actually spending money to help the customer. This is commendable behavior!
Yes — this sort of story really bothers me. Yes, the airlines have problems. But if some of them are “padding” their flight times this is a GOOD THING. And yet this is written as if they are being dishonest. Come on, Chris, you should be praising those that are willing to ultimately cut down on flights they can squeeze in each day in order to give us estimates that we can count on !
Absolutely — me too. All of my flights are connections. They’ve done this for a while and I have noticed the difference. I am much less stressed worry about connections with Delta.
Yes ! If an airline ultimately cuts down on the number of flights they are squeezing in because they are “padding” their flight times, well, God bless them! It’s one bit of good news coming out of the industry recently….
And this is a problem, why? I typically fly Delta and am PLEASED they have started using schedules that are realistic and more accurate. The whole tone of this story is like they are being sneaky: “Those statistics might not be as solid as you think.” If two planes leave the same time and Airline A says you’ll arrive at your destination at 130PM and Delta says 200PM and they both get you there at 155PM, guess what — DELTA WAS RIGHT and the other airline WRONG. All of my trips involve connections. Giving me a number I can count on is vital. If it means I may get there early, that’s fine because if I get there late I’m stranded. This story is a big “nothing burger”
Are you contradicting yourself, or are there 2 Kirks? But your last statement is correct, MIT estimated a few years ago that padding cost airlines about $2billion annually in fines, etc.
The premise is that padding, or as the industry calls them “schedule buffers”, renders the on- time record useless. And early arrivals increase airlines cost in idle planes and crew. That is pushed to consumers. It also effects connection planning. Finally, once demand is added to an already padded system, delays get even worse. So yes, when right it makes less stress but it comes at a cost to the system.
This creative scheduling is wonderful for the traveler and airline.
If an airline runs 1000 flights a day, and pads each one by 20 minutes, and each flight has an average of 2 pilots and 4 flight attendants, then that’s an extra 2000 man-hours EVERY day. That means employing an extra 250 employees EVERY day of the year. Trust me, that’s incredibly expensive. And we haven’t even considered the cost of the extra planes yet.
I don’t think the padding affects the crews and aircraft that much except possibly on a short hop like the shuttles in and out of LGA or SFO. Check out an afternoon flight from JFK-PHL on DL for an outrageous example of padding. The schedule is something crazy like 1h 30m for a 20 minute (if that!) flight
It’s more than a mixed blessing. I see it as entirely positive. Very high on-time rating thru padding means there’s a very high chance I’ll have a stress-free trip with easy connections and on-time arrivals. I’m gonna book that airline every time
Fact is, an airline that has very high on-time rating thru padding means there’s a very high chance I’ll have a stress-free trip with easy connections and on-time arrivals. I will be very loyal to that kind of airline.
Isn’t Delta into LGA the long time poster child for this? But as Kirk suggests it is likely a mixed blessing.
Of course they do! Southwest is one of the worst offenders on this practice. Also notice more early gate closures/ planes leaving the gate sooner than they should towards the end of the month if the “OTP” is slipping. And counting touch down time versus actual time arriving at the gate is another way this is a deceptive number. They are not doing it to be “customer friendly” they are doing thisso that they can use these cooked up numbers in their marketing.
This article makes it sound like “cheating”, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Padding schedules is very expensive for an airline: it means that planes and crews can operate fewer flights in a day. However, it’s a great thing for customers: fights arrive on-time (or even early), connections work seamlessly, etc. At the end of the day, schedule padding is an example of an airline spending extra money on a very customer-friendly feature. And that’s a great (and not common) thing to see.