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Huh? This article is ridiculous. > It’s called “schedule creep”, or padding. And it’s a secret the airlines don’t want you to know about, especially given the

Huh? This article is ridiculous. > It’s called “schedule creep”, or padding. And it’s a secret the airlines don’t want you to know about, especially given the spillover effects for the environment. So… let me get this right… because the announced scheduled arrival time is announced as being an hour later than usual… somehow the plane spends more time in the air and is worse for the environment… I think the author missed their morning cup of coffee. > Padding drives higher costs in fuel burn, noise and CO2 Again, with the unsubstantiated and ludicrous claim that an airline giving itself room on the schedule for operational issues not to cause cascading effects somehow means more time in the air, more noise, and more emissions. I give up. I hope nobody takes this article seriously.

AWildC182 8y ago
Ok, I'm not the only one. For the most part the gate-to-gate timeline is extremely predictable. They already have the clearances set up and know what route they're flying so the flying bit is not really going to change much outside of unforeseen weather or traffic delays. The variable part is loading, unloading, and staffing issues (someone didn't make it to work) and occasionally absorbing the impact of flight delays. I suspect the net effect is actually a decrease in CO2 emission because the delay stack at the end of the day doesn't force pilots to bump the throttles a little to cut some time on flights with lots of connections as I've seen them do before.