3 ms·

The title is misleading, it should be: "Why airlines are allocating and publishing longer flight times than are actually needed to fly a certain distance"

heyoni 8y ago
You saved me a click. Thank you!
Cthulhu_ 8y ago
And the answer: Because 40% of flights used to be late, now it's only 15%, reducing the amount of compensation airlines have to pay out. Moving the goalposts. The article tries to make it look like a bad thing, like they're skirting their responsibilities (avoiding payouts), not improving their efficiency and punctuality (which is down to late passengers, which they either have to wait for or have to remove their luggage for, OR other factors outside the airlines' control), and that it's bad for the environment. But what if, and this may sound totally wild here, what if the schedules were too tight to begin with and they've just been adjusted to compensate? I mean yes, the article makes mention that thanks to padding, a lot of flights seem to arrive early. But is that a bad thing? It means there's a lot more space to play around in. And planes can fly a bit slower, or fly at whatever speed they are most efficient at, instead of having to rush.
- madeofpalk 8y ago
  > reducing the amount of compensation airlines have to pay out. To be fair though, the point of the compensation is because a delayed flight is _very_ inconvenient. If they're removing that inconvenience by landing at the time they said they would so you can make your plans, then that's completely fine.
- gruez 8y ago
  >But what if, and this may sound totally wild here, what if the schedules were too tight to begin with and they've just been adjusted to compensate? In a perfect world this would be solved by having a 90/95/99% percentile arrvial window rather than an arrival time.
  - mattkrause 8y ago
    You can often get that data if it really matters to you (flightstats sells it, for example), but I’m not sure I want to be running an MCMC analysis every time I book a ticket.
- mikestew 8y ago
  Moving the goalposts. Or perhaps more properly, re-setting expectations. If you can’t stick to your own schedule, give me one you can stick to. I’m of course reiterating what you already said (“adjusted to compensate”), but from a customer POV I’m going to be less upset if I’m early than if I’m late.

heyoni 8y ago

You saved me a click. Thank you!

Cthulhu_ 8y ago

And the answer: Because 40% of flights used to be late, now it's only 15%, reducing the amount of compensation airlines have to pay out. Moving the goalposts. The article tries to make it look like a bad thing, like they're skirting their responsibilities (avoiding payouts), not improving their efficiency and punctuality (which is down to late passengers, which they either have to wait for or have to remove their luggage for, OR other factors outside the airlines' control), and that it's bad for the environment. But what if, and this may sound totally wild here, what if the schedules were too tight to begin with and they've just been adjusted to compensate? I mean yes, the article makes mention that thanks to padding, a lot of flights seem to arrive early. But is that a bad thing? It means there's a lot more space to play around in. And planes can fly a bit slower, or fly at whatever speed they are most efficient at, instead of having to rush.

madeofpalk 8y ago
> reducing the amount of compensation airlines have to pay out. To be fair though, the point of the compensation is because a delayed flight is _very_ inconvenient. If they're removing that inconvenience by landing at the time they said they would so you can make your plans, then that's completely fine.
gruez 8y ago
>But what if, and this may sound totally wild here, what if the schedules were too tight to begin with and they've just been adjusted to compensate? In a perfect world this would be solved by having a 90/95/99% percentile arrvial window rather than an arrival time.
- mattkrause 8y ago
  You can often get that data if it really matters to you (flightstats sells it, for example), but I’m not sure I want to be running an MCMC analysis every time I book a ticket.
mikestew 8y ago
Moving the goalposts. Or perhaps more properly, re-setting expectations. If you can’t stick to your own schedule, give me one you can stick to. I’m of course reiterating what you already said (“adjusted to compensate”), but from a customer POV I’m going to be less upset if I’m early than if I’m late.