arrive at your destination on time

Our planes may be more modern, more comfortable, emit less CO2, and allow us to watch movies on an in-seat screen the entire trip, but there’s one thing they don’t do: get us to our destination faster than ours did. parents took the same trip with the airline 30 or more years ago. It sounds counterintuitive, but it is true. Flights are much slower now than they were decades ago.

Curiously (or not), they are also more punctual.

It seems nonsense, but it makes sense.

Slower flights? Yes, much slower. Recently, data reporter Ben Blatt dug into data from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics and discovered something surprising: Contrary to what it might seem, airlines have increased their flight times.

His findings are outlined in a paper published this week in the journal New York Times in which he omits a telling fact: the average expected flight time between John F. Kennedy Airfield in New York and Los Angeles has increased by 23 minutes since the mid-90s.

Are there any other examples? Some. In fact, Blatt is not the first to notice this curious phenomenon. In 2018, a specialized magazine What a trip has already published a study concluding that average flight duration has increased by 35 minutes over ten years. There are studies that claim to have found this trend on routes operated by Ryanair or Virgin Atlantic.

Before the pandemic, the BBC also provided some examples. According to his calculations, while in 1960 a flight between New York and Washington lasted 45 minutes, in 2019 the average was 75. The same is true for New York and Los Angeles, a case analyzed by Blatt. From five hours in the 60s it increased to six.

Do trips take longer? Here’s another idea Blatt puts forward. Unlike other previous analyses, it devoted itself to a detailed study of flight durations and found a significant surprise: over the past 30 years, the duration of almost the entire operation appears to have increased, from landing to taxiing during takeoff and landing. . Also the time when planes are in the air.

As an example, he compared the average flight between JFK (New York) and LAX (Los Angeles) in 2023 with the same route in 1995. His findings are interesting.

Landing delays have been reduced from eight to 13 minutes. The so-called taxi timeThe time immediately before takeoff increased by 60 seconds, from 24 to 25 minutes. and he taxi on timewhich is the equivalent of the operation at the moment of landing, increased by three minutes, from eight to 11. As for the time in the air, it increased from 5 hours 20 minutes in 1995 to 5 hours 29 minutes in 2023. The result? The total travel time for a traveler has increased from 6 hours to 6 hours 18 minutes.

And are they more punctual? Yes, comparing current flights to those of several decades ago does not necessarily put current operations in a bad position. Another reading of the study is that services are now more punctual than before. In the case of the JFK-LAX service, the percentage of flights arriving at their destination after their scheduled time was 37%, a far cry from 51% in 1995. That is, now most flights arrive on time or in advance. .

Photography in general, however, is somewhat more complex. A minor flight delay is less common – TNYT notes that in 2023, about 30% of flights were delayed by up to 60 minutes, and in the 90s this percentage reached 45% -; but the percentage of flights with long delays is increasing.

“When things go bad, they go really bad,” Blatt quips. That is, flights with significant delays are increasing, by 90 minutes, or even three or more hours. In these cases, its frequency increased with small ups and downs to record levels.

But why? This is a big question. Why do flights take longer now than they did three decades ago? And why do they often arrive earlier when they are clearly slower? Are both trends related? To answer this, you need to understand a key concept that the BBC talked about many years ago: the “carry schedule” or “fill schedule”, mattress the time that airlines allow themselves to fly from one point to another.

It may seem strange that instead of speeding up their programming as much as possible to gain competitiveness and offer attractive times to the customer, companies allow themselves such margins, but in reality they have few disadvantages and several valuable advantages.

What are the benefits? The main thing is to have more satisfied customers. These “filler” schedules make it easier for companies to create the illusion of punctuality, and they are healthy in one of the values ​​they advertise most: reliability. Not to mention, in certain cases, the delay can result in compensation to passengers, which financially penalizes the company.

“With a drag schedule, airlines are gaming the system to trick you,” condemned Michael Baiada, president of aviation consultancy ATH Group, in a statement to the BBC. The purpose of flights is to reach their destination at point “A0”, that is, at the exact scheduled time, thereby avoiding changes in terminal planning. However, anything between that scheduled time and what is known as “A14,” which is 14 minutes after the original scheduled time, does not amount to arriving “late” in the eyes of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Is this a problem? This is a reasonable question. If our flight arrives within the limit set by the airline and we as customers leave the airport happy that we arrived at our destination on time, what is wrong with the “flight schedule”? Is it a problem for companies to afford so little? mattress guarantee your punctuality? That’s one way to look at it.

Another example is what Baiada explained in 2019: “The drag schedule leads to higher costs in fuel consumption, noise and CO2 emissions (…). If an airline’s efficiency increases, costs decrease, benefiting both the environment and fares.”

The ATH Group boss also reminds us that the cushion may have allowed airlines to artificially improve their punctuality scores, but even so, “more than 30% of flights arrive more than 15 minutes late every day.”

Is everything negative? No. With or without such profits, airlines say they are investing in improving the efficiency and sustainability of operations, a key factor for their future. In fact, there are already countries that have started a debate about whether short-haul flights should be banned where there are lower CO2-emitting alternatives, such as rail transport. Lavanya Marla, a professor of systems engineering at the University of Illinois, shares another equally interesting reflection on TNYT delays.

The most significant delays may have increased by 90 minutes to several hours, but daily operations and crew schedules have also been optimized for maximum efficiency. And this, given that airlines fly hundreds of flights every day, can become a problem if something goes wrong.

And what does this mean? “If you create a very well thought out schedule, you can accomplish the same task with fewer people. When it works, it’s great. But when an unexpected event occurs, there isn’t necessarily any wiggle room in the schedule,” warns Marla. . After all, the increase in taxiing time on the runway (TaxiTo taxiing), may have increased over recent decades, but to a lesser extent than traffic intensity.

As an example: New York Times He cites the example of LaGuardia Airport in New York: taxi time is now 24 minutes compared to 19 minutes in the 90s, true; but this increase is “only” 26%. Over the same period, departures increased by 64% on exactly the same number of tracks.

Images | Anete Lusina (Unsplash) and Roker Sta (Unsplash)

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