Taking a Little Longer to Get There

Airlines are adjusting their schedules to the new reality of air travel in this country:

“Across the airline industry, carriers have been adding minutes to “block times”—the scheduled durations—baking delays into trips so that late flights officially arrive “on-time” and operations run better because flights pull into gates more often on schedule.

For some airlines, longer scheduled times for flights reflects the reality of inefficiency in the nation’s air travel system, which often can’t handle the volume of planes without delay, especially when bad weather hits. For others, lengthening scheduled arrival times boosts on-time rankings charted by the Department of Transportation: Those numbers can have a real effect on public perception. And in some cases, block times have grown simply because airlines have been making so many schedule changes as they have reduced capacity over the past two years. Flights that took off without a wait can now end up stuck waiting behind a line of jets because departure times have been changed.”

I actually have no problem with this at all. I'd rather the airlines post realistic schedules so those of us who are traveling can rely on those times and our connections have a better chance of working out.

The last time I flew all of my flights arrived early. That may happen more often with a little extra padding in the schedule.