Another factor is that most hub-n-spoke airlines have spread-out the intensity of their banks. AA has indicated their bank times have gone from something like one hour to 90 minutes. This has three results: 1) Increase waiting time on the ground for pax between flights (minor) 2) Decrease the total staff required to turn-the-bank (key labour cost savings) 3) Improve aircraft flow in-and-out reducing delays even further. (several beneficial improvements) All contribute to having more 'on-time' arrivals. (That, and of course, padding the flight times.) Matthew http://www.redmac.ca - Getting Canadian's their Macintosh accessories http://www.justaddanoccasion.com - Great gift ideas, featuring smoked salmon On Feb 11, 2004, at 8:37 AM, David W. Levine wrote: > At 11:00 AM 2/11/2004, you wrote: >> Padding flight schedules is almost epidemic. As just one example, NY >> to >> Washington DC is scheduled for between 1 hour and 1 hour and a half, >> when >> flight >> time is about 30 minutes. This is not new, though. It started about a >> decade >> ago, when reporting on-time performance was instituted. I can't >> remember the >> [snip] > planes, not seats, as many new operations are RJs, not mainline) I've > started seeing more > flights which are backed up in the system. > > - David