As I reluctantly return to traveling for business on a regular basis, I am seeing a troubling development. It seems that the listed travel time for most flights continue to get longer. Why is that? Planes do not seem to be flying slower. I started to look into it and found an interesting article on the New York Times.
Basically, the premise is that there are more delays in the system and airlines are taking that into account when listing flight times. Seems like a reasonable premise. Delays at the terminal are up
| Averages, J.F.K. to LAX | In 1995 | In 2023 |
| Gate departure delay | 8 min. | 13 min. |
| Taxi-out time | 24 min. | 25 min. |
| Time in air | 5h 20m | 5h 29m |
| Taxi-in time | 8 min. | 11 min. |
| Total time | 6h | 6h 18m |
Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics
This converts to a 5% flight duration in flights from 1995 to 2023. During that same period, Airlines have increased their flight schedules by over 6%. This increase more than makes up for the actual delays.
Airlines do this to make themselves look good so now more flights arrive on time. What irks me is that the flight times are just losing a tie to reality. Airlines do not try to speed up their service and provide a better customer service. They just modify their numbers to claim that they are doing great. If I am flying to a destination, I want to get there as quickly and safely as possible. I do not want the airlines to take as much time as they can and just say we arrived on time. Seems like a cop out to me
But it comes down to the fact that there is nothing you can do about it. Most airlines will copy each other with the flight times to ensure that they have the best marketing spin. It just does register that improving service and flight times is valuable to their passengers!