Flights take longer than they used to, but they’re somehow early more often.In other words, the airlines can’t seem to stop the trend of longer flights, but they have figured out a way to face less customer scorn

 

Flights take longer than they used to, but they’re somehow early more often

I was looking at raw data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics on flight schedules and delays when something hit me: Many flights had a negative value for “ArrDelay,” meaning flights that arrived earlier than scheduled. In fact, the first 15 recorded flights of 2024 all had negative values — they all arrived earlier than the scheduled time.

Digging further, I discovered an interesting pattern. While flights today are less likely to be late than they were 30 years ago, they take longer to taxi out from the gate, take longer in the air, and take longer to taxi in from the runway. Flights from J.F.K. to LAX take 18 minutes longer than they used to, but are about 15 percent more likely to be considered early than they used to be. Flight times have increased, but the scheduled flight times have increased even more.

In other words, the airlines can’t seem to stop the trend of longer flights, but they have figured out a way to face less customer scorn. — Ben Blatt