Airlines padding flight times

[Tony Starke]

I’m gonna try this with the girlfriend next trip out west. I'll be a hero when we arrive 30 minutes early.

https://www.cntraveler.com/story/airlines-are-padding-flight-times-to-avoid-being-late

[67 m20F chump]

Next you will tell me there ain’t no Santa either!

[gsengle]

We don’t pad times, we appropriately set expectations...

Atc and weather are legit considerations!


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[Steve W]

Turns out if you add 3 hours to every flight then your on-time arrival rate goes way up.

Unless it's the Remote Terminal for American at LAX, then you'll still be late.

 

[Bob - S50]

Padding is a result of your favorite federal government tracking and reporting on time performance.

The airlines have a historical record of flight times and delays for every city pair, for every day of the week, for every time of day, and every month of the year.  They pad the times enough to provide a high likelihood of being "on time" (within 14 minutes).  They don't want to pad times any more than they have to because they pay their crew by the minute.  Pad the times by an hour and that's an extra hour of pay for the pilots and flight attendants.  Pad it too much and you have to higher more pilots and flight attendants to cover the planned flying (more expense).  Padding the time also increases the required fuel load, which increases the weight, which increases the fuel burn, which increases cost.  And padding the times too much limits the number of flights each aircraft can fly in a day which reduces revenue.

So it's a trade off.  How much extra expense is an airline willing to accept in order to improve their on time performance?

I do the same thing.  If I REALLY want to leave at 1000, I'll tell my wife/daughters I want to leave at 0945.  That way when we actually leave at 0955 I'll be happy.

[jlunseth]

7 hours ago, Bob - S50 said:

I do the same thing.  If I REALLY want to leave at 1000, I'll tell my wife/daughters I want to leave at 0945.  That way when we actually leave at 0955 I'll be happy.

Does that actually work? I always found that they just adjust back, so they are a half hour late instead of fifteen minutes. Actually I would be grateful if they were only a half hour late. I have been scolded by maitre d’s more than once about being late as the host. What am I gonna do, tell them an hour? Two hours earlier?

[Bob - S50]

1 hour ago, jlunseth said:

Does that actually work? I always found that they just adjust back, so they are a half hour late instead of fifteen minutes. Actually I would be grateful if they were only a half hour late. I have been scolded by maitre d’s more than once about being late as the host. What am I gonna do, tell them an hour? Two hours earlier?

It only works if you don't do it every time and they don't know what time you REALLY want to leave.  I do it by over-estimating the travel time and often blame unknown traffic conditions if I'm called on my estimate.

[Rjfanjet]

At my place of employment, we get paid the historical credit of the city pair, or actual time, whichever is greater. On some pairs the difference can be 15 minutes. Most of the time it's less than 5.

 

[Hank]

2 hours ago, Rjfanjet said:

At my place of employment, we get paid the historical credit of the city pair, or actual time, whichever is greater. On some pairs the difference can be 15 minutes. Most of the time it's less than 5.

 

At my job, I draw the same salary every two weeks [for an assumed 40 hours per week]. My historical range is 2 hours mimimum with Monday morning hospital admission, to 108 hours maximum. I think I'm getting shorted . . . . .

[Andy95W]

There's still time, Hank.  You can be an airline pilot if you want to!

[ExpressJetter]

This is nothing new.  They've been doing heavily  this since the passenger bill of rights came out

[1964-M20E]

you can always blame a padded fight time on a better tailwind.

[Seth]

My wife has been tempted to create an App for GA pilots.  When you tell your spouse you are going to the airport to for a quick flight, she'll know you'll be gone for 4-5 hours.  

"I'm heading to a brunch fly in" means I'll be home in time for dinner.

I'm going for a morning flight, should be back at 10:00 = see you a 1:00 PM

I'm going to update the GPS = See you in 3 hours.

I'm going to go plug in the heater = see you in 1 hour.

Something like that figuring out distance to airport and come up with a calculation.

-Seth

 

[Hank]

3 hours ago, Seth said:

My wife has been tempted to create an App for GA pilots.  When you tell your spouse you are going to the airport to for a quick flight, she'll know you'll be gone for 4-5 hours.  

"I'm heading to a brunch fly in" means I'll be home in time for dinner.

I'm going for a morning flight, should be back at 10:00 = see you a 1:00 PM

I'm going to update the GPS = See you in 3 hours.

I'm going to go plug in the heater = see you in 1 hour.

Something like that figuring out distance to airport and come up with a calculation.

-Seth

 

Didn't take my wife long to learn that "I have a flight lesson at 10" meant "I'll try to not be late for supper."  

[flyboy0681]

In my office I have a framed American Airlines ad from 1962 of a 707 with the caption "New York to San Francisco in 4.5 hours".

[carusoam]

A fly in at an MSer home drome in PA may entail stopping at the R&R HOF in Cleveland... on the way home...

Some extra time may be needed...

-a-

[Immelman]

Schedules are set so that the operation works (most of the time) while minimizing extra cost. If they pad flights excessively, they're losing out on crew productivity for paying them for time they're not working. Besides the crew, it ties up a lot of capital (the airplane) that cannot be used elsewhere during that time.

 

So pick your poison...

Edited October 3, 2019 by Immelman