This really sounds like a non-issue. As a consumer, I'd much rather have them over estimate the flight schedule and arrive early than the reverse. I live near a

This really sounds like a non-issue. As a consumer, I'd much rather have them over estimate the flight schedule and arrive early than the reverse. I live near a smaller regional airport and end up having layovers basically anytime I fly anywhere more than 200 miles away, so I always relax a little easier when I pilot tells me we're landing ahead of schedule on my first leg so I know I wont miss my connection. As for carbon emissions, I'm guessing that whatever padded on time is spent at the gate isn't really an issue, it's more about drawn out approaches when landing. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that something like this happens when you have so many planes entering and leaving an airport, it's amazing to me that things go as smoothly as they do. Plane travel isn't going anywhere and it seems a little absurd to me that flight time needs to be completely min-maxed down to the minute due to carbon emissions, there are definitely easier and more effective ways to control this.