Stateofusaviation Comprehensive Analysis of Airline Schedules & Airport Delay

2012 American Aviation Institute. Protected document, all rights reserved.
The State of U.S. Aviation Comprehensive Analysis of Airline Schedules & Airport Delays
Darryl Jenkins, Chairman
djenkins@aviationinstitute.org
Joshua Marks, Executive Director

jmarks@aviationinstitute.org
Michael Miller, Vice President, Strategy

mike@aviationinstitute.org
February 16, 2012
AMERICAN AVIATION INSTITUTE 4833 Rugby Avenue, Suite 301 Bethesda, MD 20814 USA Report and supporting materials available at: www.aviationinstitute.org
ABSTRACT
As the U.S. economy rebounds from cyclical recession, inevitably there is a point where the media asks if our national aviation system is at capacity, or is about to reach capacity. Consumer advocates and regulators claim that airline over-scheduling (which we define as scheduling more flights at an airport than reasonably sustainable over the long term) is responsible for excessive flight delays and cancellations. Claims are often made about airport and airspace capacity, where airport and airspace choke points exist, and how to fix them through government intervention. This report intends to illustrate the dependencies and intricacies of airline, airport and air traffic control constraints on the U.S. air transportation system. AAI has conducted an extensive analysis of flight-level delays, airline capacity, operating metrics and flight schedule design. We believe it the most extensive airline schedules and delay analysis undertaken to date, using more than 200 million data records spanning 20 years, and investigating delays and aircraft performance at 400 United States airports. We conclude that airline scheduling decisions are consistent with the expected capacity of given airports, as defined by FAA Operational Metrics, historical and reasonable future weather conditions, and changes made to airline scheduling practices including aircraft gate turn times, schedule de-peaking and en-route scheduled block time. Significant variability of ramp, taxiway and local airspace capacity at certain airports impacts real-world airline departure flow capacity and is the primary driver of unexpected lengthy delays. We illustrate that direct government intervention in airline scheduling through demand management (e.g. airport slot control) would be counter-productive. If the U.S. government undertook demand managing of flights at major airports to match worst-case runway capacity, it would cause $18.7 billion in annual economic harm. However, long-term investment in airspace systems set in recent passage of the FAA Reauthorization bill will have a significant benefit to both airspace efficiency and delays, if both airlines and general aviation operators meet minimum thresholds of new technology equipage. Recent airport runway capacity increases and schedule rationalization by airlines have improved on-time performance at major airports. To continue this improvement, we propose solutions in this report to further improve communication among airlines; establish airspace capacity benchmarks; incorporate taxiway, ramp and human factors into airport capacity benchmarks; and alleviate operational restrictions that encourage gate delays and cancellations. This study utilizes public data sets from the FAA and DOT and available data sets from NOAA and OAG, a commercial information vendor. Analytics in this report were prepared using databases from DOT and FAA, as well as analytical tools from the masFlight data platform (www.masflight.com).
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CONTENTS 1. Executive Summary 2. Key Findings & Conclusions 3. Flight Delay Trends & Analysis 4. Airport Capacity Benchmarking 5. Schedule Peaks, Capacity & Delays 6. Rebutting The Overscheduling Argument 7. Conclusions and Recommendations 8. Exhibits & Appendices
SECTION ONE: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This paper presents an exploratory analysis of the relationship among flight delays, airline schedules and airport capacity. It is the most extensive data-driven analysis of airline schedules and delays even undertaken. Data cited is for scheduled airlines. Airport data also includes non-scheduled capacity, including cargo, military and general aviation operations. Flight delays are gate departures or arrivals 15 minutes or greater after the scheduled times. Airline scheduling is the assignment of specific aircraft and departure times to routes served. Airline over-scheduling is the practice of scheduling more flights in a given time window than an airport can accommodate without chronic delays given environmental conditions that influence ramp, taxiway and runway capacity. To date, the connection between controllable schedule planning and flight delays has been neither quantitatively defined nor proven. We review the connection between airline flight schedules, airport conditions and constraints, and observed flight delays and cancellations. We assess the relationship during varying weather and operational conditions with focus on the following three questions: 1. How have airlines adapted their flight operations and schedule planning to mitigate the impact of flight delays and cancellations? 2. Is the airline practice of scheduling arriving and departing banks of aircraft to minimize connecting time for passengers (defined as peaked schedules) causing major delays at large airports? 3. Do airlines, on average, individually and in aggregate, overschedule their operations? If so, is this overscheduling a major determinant of flight delays observed? These are critical questions in both determining the optimal level of airport capacity planning and delay management strategies as the industry transitions to GPS-based navigation systems (NextGen) and manages associated capital investments. Various academic, regulatory and industry commentators have linked overscheduling and airline flight delays, but no determinative link between the issues has been made. Existing research is highly quantitative, sometimes ignoring real-world flight and operational constraints; is based on systemwide data or data for broad airport groupings; and does not account for historical weather conditions and advance predictions of weather, ramp and airspace congestion made by individual airlines when scheduling airports. We believe this is why existing research has yet to translate into concrete,
Section One: Executive Summary
actionable policy recommendations regarding slot creation, slot trading and systemwide delay management, either in the current ATC environment or under future NextGen infrastructure. We find that intentional scheduling decisions by airlines play a limited role in causing (or addressing) flight delays observed. observed delays. Weather factors, regional choke points and intersecting departure and arrival corridors between airports remain the most important factors connected to The overall level or composition of airline demand has minimal impact In these limited situations, government-organized demand(positive or negative) on observed delays except where the airport is operating at a very high level of demand relative to capacity. management programs (in the form of reservations and/or slots with rigid restrictions on trading and re-allocation) limit airlines ability to optimize flight schedules in order to minimize delays. As a result, we observe abnormal flight delays at airports with these government-managed demand controls, and a significant follow-on impact of these controls systemwide. We find no evidence that airport-wide airline scheduling decisions create excessive exposure to external delay factors (weather and airspace). Balanced departure flows, buffers in en-route scheduled time, and extended airport turn times provide a meaningful buffer against weather and airspace congestion impact. There have been changes in each of these strategies since the delay peak of the mid-2000s. We demonstrate that since 2005 most carriers have taken significant pro-active steps insulate flights from the follow-on impact of delays. We focus in particular on strategic delay management programs into their schedules, reviewing how airlines expanded en-route flight times to internalize probable delays. We demonstrate that the increased variability of taxi-in and taxi-out times drives an average increase in en-route planned time (block time) of between 2% and 4% (depending on time of day) between the late 1990s and 2010. We posit that delay internalization is largely driven by DOT monthly media reports that rank airlines based on gate arrival within 15 minutes, without consideration to en-route flight time or normal operational variability. By holding airlines accountable to a specific metric and one of debatable value to consumers DOT has guided airline operational behavior towards schedule padding. This in turn creates gate and ramp congestion at airports as flights await runway departure or gates after landing. Internal schedule planning factors are largely dependent upon the airport and airspace infrastructure on which those decisions are made. To assess the relationship between schedules and airport capacity, we have analyzed 10 years of operational data. We review the FAA
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Operational Benchmarks published for U.S. airport facilities, the actual capacity of the given runway infrastructure (the ongoing sum of departure and arrival rates) and weather variability observed during the past 10 years. We map airline schedule demand against capacity and observe that operating in excess of the FAA Benchmarks does not necessarily result in flight delays. We identify problems inherent in the FAA Benchmarking methodology, including exclusion of ramp and taxiway capacity, weather variability by hour of the day, and other qualitative factors such as controller experience that materially impact airport operation rates, as factors airlines take into account today when setting schedules. We confirm that the FAA Benchmarks offer a useful starting point for airline schedule planning, but require adjustment to gauge absolute capacity of a given airport under specific weather conditions. Consumer advocates frequently discuss the theoretical concept of airline over-scheduling in the media. Commentators casually define over-scheduling as the practice of consciously operating more flights than an airport can reasonably accommodate. We find past evidence of over-scheduling in only one market New York City and only during two specific windows, at LaGuardia airport after the revocation of commuter slots in 2000, and at JFK airport during the fall of 2006. Both proved expensive lessons for both airlines and the traveling public, and resulted in a significant overhaul of airline scheduling practices. In todays environment, we find no evidence connecting flight planning decisions made by a specific carrier at a specific airport and resulting delays or cancellations that can be traced directly to that schedule. We also find the claim that controllable factors such as airline schedules can meaningfully reduce flight delays to be unsupported by available data. We assess the economic cost of reducing airline schedules to worst-case runway capacity levels. Demand-management programs with this objective would cause $18.7 billion in annual economic harm to both airlines and the tourism industry, not counting lost productivity or business harm. Furthermore, we demonstrate that on-time performance improvements from such demand-management programs are marginal, and would not achieve the target on-time performance rates set by regulators. During the past 10 years, U.S. carriers have introduced new rolling hub scheduling models where operating banks are smoothed out. Rolling hub structures versus peaked models are particularly cost-effective at airports that operate close to FAA Operational Benchmark capacity. During normal weather conditions, rolling bank structures utilize gate and ramp infrastructure efficiently. During irregular operations, rolling hub structures actually contribute to higher follow-on flight delays as the consistent level of hub operations prevents catch-up
Section One: Executive Summary
periods present in banked models. We show that concentrated or banked hub models operating below maximum capacity actually drive the lowest overall delay metrics relative to highly utilized or rolling peers. We conclude that delay reduction through strategic flight scheduling has become an integral part of airline planning and decision-making. Rolling hubs, strategic delay management through expanded block times (or schedule padding) and increased aircraft turn times internalize the impact of weather and airspace variability. We propose three policy or regulatory options that we believe could drive significant further improvements in delays and cancellations. First, we observe a critical need for open-market slot-trading mechanisms at demandmanaged U.S. airports including New Yorks JFK and LaGuardia, and Washington Reagan National. Political interference (driven by regional air service demands) restricts airlines ability to re-allocate slots economically to match demand to capacity. In 2011 DOT approved an elaborate slot exchange between Delta and US Airways at LaGuardia and Washington National, but the conditions for divestment in this transaction indicate an increased ambition by government to micro-manage flights and competition at slot-restricted airports. In addition, this transaction took more than two years to complete, a further delay of open market competition. Pooling commuter and mainline slots currently there are rules that force an airline to operate aircraft that conform to one type of slot or the other would allow larger and more economically viable aircraft to serve key routes and potentially dampen the number of smaller aircraft that currently are forced by government rule to be used at these key airports. We observe the negative impact of political interference and arbitrary slot re-allocation on flight delays. Second, we believe that limited anti-trust immunity for airline scheduling decisions at key U.S. airports would benefit the traveling public. Such collaboration should be limited to advance information exchange regarding departure and arrival demand preferences, aircraft types and destinations. Current rules forbid any discussions. This would be a natural extension of todays Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) framework that allocates departure and arrival capacity during operational disruptions to carriers. By allowing airlines to exchange schedule priorities in advance, a fuller picture of airport demand could be achieved, potentially reducing schedule peaks, especially at high-demand East Coast U.S. airports. We do not believe anti-trust
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immune discussions give airlines unfair leverage over consumers, since they are incentivized to reduce block time and reduce taxi times. Carriers would achieve lower labor and fuel costs. Third, operational regulations including invasive limits on taxi times could be improved, as these have had a significant impact on gate holds and flight cancellations since April 2010. The flight cancellation rate during bad weather events has been consistent across operational seasons. However, bad weather cancellation rates increased from 3.6% to 5.2% excluding the severe weather patterns observed during the winter of 2010-2011. DOT consumer protection regulations have shifted delay time from post-gate departure to before boarding, with the impact of congesting gate and ramp facilities. We believe that clear enforcement guidance, reasonable fines (versus multi-million dollar penalties in force today that exacerbate cancellation behavior) and re-framing the regulation to measure gate return decisions by the pilot in command, versus the aircraft at-gate, would significantly improve flight completion rates nationwide and help hundreds of thousands of consumers to reach their destination faster. We find that airline schedules are based on reasonable estimates of weather probability and competitive runway demand, grounded in historical weather statistics and justified by FAApublished operational metrics. Weather and regional airspace congestion outside airline control are the primary drivers of excessive delays, just as they remain the key drivers behind flight cancellations and extended on-board tarmac times. We conclude that changes in aircraft turn times and incorporation of expected delays into published en-route times mitigates the impact of delays, providing consumers with a reasonable expectation of arrival times. Fundamental change to airline delays will require introduction of next-generation air traffic management systems such as the FAAs NextGen air traffic management program to alleviate regional airspace congestion and improve departure and arrival rates at key airports. We use four primary data sets in our analysis. First, FAA operational data provides aggregate-level demand, delay and congestion metrics, as well as overall arrival and departure capacity rates. Second, DOT Part 234 Airline Service Quality Performance data provides airlineand airport-specific demand and delay information for domestic flights. Third, airline flight schedules as published by OAG augment the Part 234 data set with international flight schedules and demand. Finally, the model uses hourly weather data provided by the National Climactic Data Center at the U.S. Department of Commerce. All data in this model is obtainable by public researchers with permission. Our data samples are based on the aggregate period from January 2000 through December 2009, plus on-time and schedule data through March 2011.
Section Two: Key Findings and Prior Work
SECTION TWO: KEY FINDINGS AND PRIOR WORK This paper presents an exploratory analysis of flight delays, airport capacity, airline schedules and their corresponding relationships to departure and arrival delays observed at major airports in the United States. Using weather, flight schedule, and delay information from aviation (DOT and FAA), climate (NOAA) and commercial (OAG) sources, the paper explores the relationships between schedules, capacity and flight-level operational data. 2.1 Key Findings From our exploratory analysis, we observe the following: 1. Airline scheduling practices have adapted with an increased focus on on-time performance. We focus on three broad categories of operational strategy changes: en-route scheduled time (block time and schedule padding), hub-airport connecting flight structures and banking, and scheduled/actual aircraft turn times at key U.S. airports. 2. Over the past 10 years, airlines have progressively de-peaked their flight schedules at major hubs. Outside of the New York metropolitan area, most hubs operate on a rolling structure at 58% of published capacity. 3. The airports with the most significant peaks in operational scheduling are also the airports with the lowest observed aggregate delay rates. We recognize that this runs counter to popular opinion, but it is supported by data from a geographically diverse pool of airports of varying sizes. Peaked schedules are generally observed at airports with lower overall capacity utilization. Airports with higher capacity utilization generally have a more even distribution of flights. 4. There is no significant statistical correlation between peaked schedules and flight delays. Flight delays correlate to total utilization at the margin, not to the structure of banks or at airports with moderate capacity utilization. In other words, the aggregate utilization of a given airport as driven by gate and ramp facilities, by air-traffic control facility flexibility and airspace design has a more direct relationship to delays than the scheduling decisions made by carriers at that given airport, particularly when overall airline demand for resources at a given airport is high.
5.
For short-term weather and airspace disruptions, peaked schedules insulate flights from rolling delays originating at the airport. The valleys between peaks in a schedule provide an opportunity to recover from short-term disruptions. In contrast, airports that operate near capacity but without peaks offer little opportunity or slack capacity to recover until the end of the day so delay and cancellation events snowball. These airports can be demonstrated to originate flight delays that continue throughout the system.
6.
Peaked schedules as determined by individual airline scheduling decisions are a red herring when considering flight delays at a given facility. Peaked schedule decisions by individual carriers were relevant 15 years ago as delay drivers, but are not as relevant today.
7.
With the shift from peaked to rolling banked models at major hubs, airlines have generally expanded the time allocated to turn aircraft at these facilities. Average aircraft turn times have increased 4.2% systemwide between 2005 and 2010. Longer turn times provide insulation against downstream impact from delayed inbound arrivals. They also provide additional time to address carrier-caused delays such as mechanical and crew staffing events.
8.
There has been a significant shift in the variability of taxi-times at key U.S. airports relative to changes in actual flight times. This is driven by the first-in, first-out airspace management system in place today. Aircraft are accepted into the system when ATC can route the flight without excessive delays. Ground delay programs create ground congestion at originating airports as planes queue for scarce arrival positions at the impacted destinations. Airlines have internalized the impact of GDPs through additional block-time minutes (called schedule padding) between 2% and 4% system wide.
9.
Given bank structures, turn times and en-route padding, airline schedules are based on operational assumptions about the frequency and severity of weather events that reduce airport capacity. Airlines assess available capacity relative to the expected weather, airspace and regional constraints at a given airport. The FAA uses three static benchmarks for runway capacity, but these benchmarks do not differentiate between morning and evening, or between winter and summer.
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10.
FAA Operational Benchmarks of airport capacity do not fully incorporate gate capacity, ramp and runway layout, immediate airspace design and other factors that significantly impact airport capacity. Airlines take into account the probability of given weather conditions based on observed historical conditions. Such metrics must be seasonally dynamic and differentiated by time of day. The probability of delay-inducing weather by season and time of day must be incorporated into planning, along with the level of operations for non-scheduled passenger, cargo and military flight operations.
11.
We find no correlation between flight schedules and flight delays, examining both individual airline schedules and all schedules/delays in aggregate. We filter by time of day, day of week and month of year without significant changes in correlations observed.
12.
When aggregate flight schedules as independently determined by competitive carriers in the absence of information sharing approach or exceed the FAA static definitions of maximum capacity, delays can result. This is particularly true for the bad-weather threshold capacity (IFR) at six major airports. This suggests that the definitions used by FAA for optimal capacity do not properly incorporate variability in weather, as for significant periods of each year airports operate above the FAAs maximum capacity definition without causing significant flight delays.
13.
We find no evidence that airlines have overscheduled for competitive or marketdominance reasons at any major airport in the past 10 years. In two cases, aggressive scheduling by a combination of carriers at the same airport, through independent competitive decision-making, has resulted in aggregate operational levels in excess of the overcapacity threshold we define. In these situations, resolution must either incorporate solutions at an airport level, or some level of anti-trust immunity or approved information sharing to facilitate inter-airline coordination of capacity.
14.
We demonstrate that reducing flight schedules at major U.S. airports to the worstcase runway capacity would have an $18.7 billion annual cost to airlines and the U.S. economy. We also demonstrate that such a change may result in a marginal improvement in on-time performance, but would fall well short of the target onFebruary 16, 2012 Page 9
time rates set by the FAA.
We point to airspace capacity improvements
particularly implementation of NextGen infrastructure as the key to improving flight performance without economic harm. 15. We define potential follow-on research that could identify the specific marginal conditions when schedules become unreliable, the recursive relationship of weather, runway, taxiway and ramp congestion on operational performance, and how airlines could exchange scheduling intentions to reduce the impact of cumulative competitive decisions without violation of anti-trust regulations. 2.2 Prior Work Our work continues analysis of delays, airport capacity and related trends by both academic and industry practitioners. Table 1 below presents key research papers during the past 10 years that assess the relationships between flight delays and airport capacity. Table 1: Prior Work on Airline Delays and Airport Capacity
For more information, see Xu, Laskey & Sherry Method for Deriving Multi-Factor Models for Predicting Airport Delays (2007)
Response variable Probability of on-time performance, delays and flight cancellations at New York LaGuardia Discussion of general flight delay and flight cancellations Airport Arrival Rate (AAR)
Predictor variables Economic (e.g. revenue, load factors), Route Competition (e.g. Monopoly), Airport competition (e.g. Concentration at origination, hub destination), Logistical (e.g. slot origination, distance, hours until next flights). Weather (e.g. rain, minimum temperature, frozen) Scheduled arrivals, visibility, wind, visibility and operational condition, time and season Airport and airspace-specific flight delays, with consideration to exogenous variables: derived queuing delay, adverse weather, ground-delay program holding and overall flight operations levels
Author Rupp 2005
Methods Nested Logit Model
Hansen and Zhang 2005
GARCH
LaGuardia average arrival delay and National Airspace System average arrival delay (daily)
Hansen and Zhang 2005
Two-stage leastsquares model with GARCH model
Weather-weighted traffic count (surrogate for system delay) Arrival and Departure Delays Observed
Expected traffic demand, Weather Impacted Traffic Index (WITI), IMC, wind speed Departure delays at origin, arrival delays at destination, loads on departure flights, stations and stoptimes.
Chatterji and Sridhar 2005
Recursive OLS
Vigneau 2003
Recursive OLS
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Response variable Airspace delay impact, cancellations and diversions Taxi-out Times Predictor variables En route WITI, instrument weather conditions and wind speed
Author Callaham 2001
Methods OLS
Runway configuration, airline, VFR/IFR, downstream restrictions, departure demand, queue size
Idirs et al. 2002
OLS
Our methodology builds on prior work in four respects. a. Ground-Up Flight Analysis. To address differences among airports and flight scheduling strategies, our flight information is based on the complete records of DOT On-Time Performance Data as filed by reporting carriers under Part 234. b. Tail number tracking. To identify changes to en-route scheduled time and aircraft turn times in the U.S. airspace system, we reconcile tail-number information reported by U.S. carriers with FAA Registry data in order to isolate differences among airlines and fleet types. c. Weather integration. We fully integrate weather and runway configuration data in order to differentiate good-weather and bad-weather performance. d. Exploratory objectives. We correlate factors related to airline schedules, weather
conditions, delays and cancellations in order to establish links among the factors and identify changes in airline strategy. Our objective is to develop further discussion on these topics and identify assumptions not supported by observable data.
Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends
SECTION THREE: FLIGHT LEVEL DELAY TRENDS The fundamental question when assessing delay causes is this: Do independent airline scheduling decisions, made with rational internal justification in pursuit of each airlines commercial objectives, cause delays in the national airspace system?1 The answer has both obvious and non-obvious components. To start with the simplest case, if airlines scheduled no flights, there would be no flight delays. As system utilization builds, there is a general relationship between demand and delays. However, previous work has demonstrated that the correlation between demand and delays is weak until aggregate demand levels approach the absolute capacity limits of a given airport.2 There are few cases where airports actually operated at or above the published capacity limits, and in the most recent case at New York LaGuardia after slot restrictions on regional jets were lifted in 2000 the impact on delays was severe. Government-administered demand management programs such as slots or allocations are imposed before airports reach the break point. that we discuss later. Weather, airspace congestion, airport capacity and aircraft dispatch reliability all have stronger relationships with delays than airline schedule demand for airport resources. In this paper, we investigate flight delay trends, airport capacity benchmarks and changes in airline hub scheduling to explore the relationships among these factors and correlation to aggregate flight delays and cancellations. The question we seek to address is whether changes to airline scheduling strategies, in the absence of significant capacity reduction, can address flight delays and cancellations.3 We also seek to address whether airline planning and operating strategies have adapted since the delay peak of 2007 with changes to schedule design and implementation. It is worth noting that delay and congestion issues are prevalent at airports with government-administered programs, for reasons
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It is worth noting that airline scheduling decisions, unless coordination is explicitly authorized by the United States government, occurs among airlines in relative isolation compared to the open slot-exchange and demand-managed environment prevalent in Europe. A key driver is the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requirement that airport recipients of federal funds must commit to open and fair access by all airlines for all airport assets. 2 See GAO, National Airspace System: Setting On-Time Performance Targets at Congested Airports Could Help Focus FAA's Actions, GAO-10-542 May 26, 2010 3 We note that several consumer advocates have called for a reduction in domestic flight capacity in order to address flight delays. We agree that very significant reductions in flight capacity would indeed result in a material improvement in flight operational quality and cancellations. However, the cuts in capacity would likely need to be 3540% of currently scheduled flights even during the late 1980s and early 1990s, with flight operations 20% lower than 2010, on-time arrival performance was similar. A reduction in domestic capacity of 35-40% would have a severe impact on the U.S. economy and the traveling public. We therefore discount material (systemwide) capacity reduction
1
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To examine optimal scheduling levels, one must construct a definition for excessive scheduling. As noted in prior works on a systemwide basis, there is an inherent trade-off between capacity (number of flights) and delays.4 The higher the system load, the less flexibility airlines have to recover their operations when weather, airspace, mechanical or security factors prevent scheduled flight operations. We define airline over-scheduling as the practice of consciously scheduling more flights to and from a given airport than the capacity level at that airport reasonably expected based on a probability distribution of weather, airspace, and systemic delay factors. This definition parallels the independent scheduling decisions that occur at airlines as they plan future schedules, block times and gate utilization. We will utilize this definition throughout this paper, reviewing where capacity definitions used by the FAA and other regulatory bodies differ from our standard. 3.1 Exploratory Analysis Objectives Our exploratory analysis is intended to establish relationships among capacity, weather and airline schedules in order to ultimately model flight delays. Our approach is granular, using schedule, weather and on-time data on an airport-specific basis. Our approach builds up to systemwide estimates, rather than focusing on systemwide performance metrics that mask important differences in specific airport designs, schedules and weather conditions. Our analysis uses publicly available data from government aviation sources (including FAA and DOT historical data), weather information (from NOAA and the National Climate Data Center) as well as industry sources (OAG). We explore five issues in depth: a. What factors cause airline delays? What trends can be identified to connect independent scheduling decisions made by carriers with both carrier and systemic delays observed? b. Is the airline practice of scheduling arrival and departure banks in order to minimize passenger connect time (peaking) causing major delays at large hub airports? c. What changes to airline turn times and en-route scheduled block time to internalize the impact of systemwide airspace and weather delays can be observed?
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as a potential response to flight delays. However, there is potential for demand management solutions at key airports such as New York LGA and JFK as long as airlines are permitted to exchange slots without government interference. 4 Xu, N. et al. Multi-Factor Model for Predicting Delays at U.S. Airports. Transportation Research Board, 2005. February 16, 2012 Page 13
d. Do airlines, individually or in aggregate, over-schedule their operations? If so, to what extent do airline schedules correlate to flight delays observed? e. Given the core conditions described above, what improvements in physical infrastructure or airline practices could insulate schedules from repetitive delay drivers? These are critical to consider in determining capacity planning decisions and delay management strategies. Under the current radar-based traffic management infrastructure, capacity flexibility is limited by absorption rates of airport-specific airspace. The transition to NextGen GPS-based ATM infrastructure will offer new flexibility to airlines and airports. Understanding the delay implications and relationships will be critical to justifying infrastructure investment by both government and industry. Various academic, regulatory and industry reports have linked airline schedules and flight delays, but no comprehensive model has yet demonstrated a direct (causal) link between the two. Much of the existing research on factors relevant to airline scheduling and delays is quantitative and theoretical, sometimes ignoring real-world operational constraints. By starting with systemwide data (as opposed to ground-up airport analysis) the body of research understates key differences in runway configuration, weather patterns, airline competition and schedule drivers for each airport. The optimal framework for schedule and delay analysis mirrors the everyday scheduling decisions made by carriers. The optimal flight schedule tempers the revenue-maximizing schedule with a given probability expectation of weather and other operational disruptions. No airline plans to operate at 100% on-time performance levels, and mandating high on-time performance would only encourage thin schedules and flight cancellations that would harm consumers. The FAAs internal target of 88% on-time performance is equally unrealistic given the wide variation among airports, geography, weather and terminal capacity at U.S. airports. A more surgical approach to on-time performance is required, and the question of what operational reliability to target is an airline-specific decision. Weather, airport design and airspace congestion are all key variables in this equation. This is why we believe existing delay research has yet to translate into concrete and actionable policy recommendations that result in delay improvements, particularly for slot-controlled airports and those susceptible to long delays. In particular, the connections between schedules, weather and delays (under our current radar-based traffic system and under NextGen infrastructure) are highly relevant in discussions of slot creation and trading, schedule coordination (arms-length or with explicit antitrust immunity) and airport-specific recovery plans.
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In this section, we review the general delay trends and effects observable through the past 20 years. In particular, we focus on flight-level delay and cancellation data since October 2008, when U.S. airlines reporting flight performance data to DOT began to report more detailed flight ground delay, diversion and cancellation data. In Section Four, we will review airport capacity benchmarking in order to compare delay trends against changes in airport capacity, and changes in airline schedules, focusing on hub de-peaking and increased capacity utilization at key hub airports between 2000 and 2010. Finally, in Section Five we will review the arguments made by consumer advocates to support claims of airline overscheduling and demonstrate why such claims are based on questionable assumptions and estimates. 3.2 General Delay Causes Our objective for this section is to review the primary causes of airline delays, and investigate the scheduling, equipment and network patterns that drive observable differences among key U.S. airlines. There are three primary factors that cause airline delays and disruption to the planned flight schedule: 1. Non-systemic, airline-specific factors, including mechanical failures, labor resources, inability to load or deplane aircraft, inability to de-ice and unavailability of required gate and ramp assets; 2. Competitive scheduling and operational decisions made by other carriers at the airport, which may impact the availability of ramp, taxiway and runway assets during the airlines planned operation; and 3. The physical capacity of the airport and surrounding airspace, including ramp space, taxiways, runways and regional airspace. This physical capacity defines how many aircraft to and from a given airport can be absorbed in a timely manner. Each of these primary factors is influenced by weather conditions, making environmental factors the most important determinant of whether airline schedules optimized on the three criteria above will be operationally robust. Weather influences the availability of crew (which must transit to base or to airports after layovers) and ramp personnel. Daily weather creates disruptions that flow through airline networks and force delay or concentration of flight operations. And most importantly, weather has a significant impact on the physical capacity of an airport and surrounding airspace. Weather curtails departure and arrival corridors, contaminates runways and creates conditions requiring higher levels of separation between
aircraft. Weather not only impacts controllable airline factors, but it also impacts the core arrival and departure capacity of an airport and its surrounding airspace. For this reason airline scheduling requires a predictive estimate of the impact of weather conditions and environmental factors on a given airports departure and arrival capacity. It requires estimation of the frequency with which weather or environmental conditions will occur. And weather amplifies the game theory of carrier schedule design, as independent carriers make isolated scheduling decisions for flights at the common resources of major airports. While we show that delays and schedule activity have low direct correlation, severe weather and flight delays have a very high correlation.5 In fact, weather conditions are the primary driver of flight delays, as conditions result in significant loss of effective airport and airspace capacity.6 To what extent can severe weather events be predicted and built into airline schedules? This is a fundamental question for airline planning and operations. Every major airline has (from observation and experience) a measure of airport capacity and performance under a variety of weather conditions. Each airline also has historical data to plan the average impact of weather across long periods of time. Predicting the average impact of weather across a network at the beginning of a season is difficult, but with long-range forecasting not impossible. Predicting which specific airports will be hit by weather on which specific days with certainty sufficient to merit reduction in flight schedules and loss of revenue is beyond todays technology. Given that flight schedules are set months in advance, this means airline weather planning is relatively blunt, based on general statistical metrics and focused more on operational recovery than on culling flight schedules months in advance. 3.3 Planning for Airport Capacity Airlines use a variety of information sources when assessing long-range schedule susceptibility to weather events. The first step is often to assess an airlines historical flight performance at a given airport, along with historical weather information to determine average occurrences of convective, winter weather and other disruptive environmental conditions. But while airlines have a wealth of internal data to refer to, information about a given airports capacity has been difficult to obtain.
5 As shown in Exhibit F, the correlation between airline weather delay minutes and airline cancellations is 0.63, a relevant, strong and positive correlation. 6 For more information, see Exhibit E.
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To address this information gap, the FAA has published operational capacity benchmarks for each major U.S. airport.7 The FAA's estimates provide three predicted capacity levels for arrivals and departures: the rate during good weather, marginal weather and bad weather. Last updated in 2004, the FAA estimates establish a baseline of data to use for analysis of airport capacity. Because the Operational Benchmarks exclude information about a given airport facilitys ramp and taxiway infrastructure, gate capacity, local airspace congestion and the very relevant human factors around controller flexibility and recovery experience, the Operational Benchmarks are a better estimate of runway capacity versus airport capacity. In Section Four, we examine how those benchmarks have evolved in practice as new runway capacity and schedule optimization since 2004 have impacted airport and airline operations. We also show why the Operational Benchmarks must be reviewed in conjunction with airline schedule, airport movement area and terminal capacity issues. In addition to core Operational Benchmarks, the FAA also sets arrival and departure capacity for key U.S. airports throughout the day.8 These metrics are called Airport Arrival Rates (AAR) and Airport Departure Rates (ADR). The available airport capacity is the sum of ADR and AAR. These metrics represent the maximum flow of arrivals and departures that a given airport can process. They incorporate more real-world factors than the theoretical Operational Capacity Benchmarks, including the inherent trade-off between arrivals and departures (that is, increasing arrival capacity by a given amount may result in a disproportionate decrease in departure capacity because of runway configurations and arrival/departure corridors in the airport vicinity). These published arrival and departure rates provide an insight into the relationship between aggregate airline demand 9 and specific airport capacity at a given point in time. Published arrival and departure rates may differ significantly from the airline flight schedules for a given facility. For secondary markets with large airports, airport capacity can be significantly higher than airline demand. At large airport facilities in metropolitan airports, where one or more carriers may operate a hub facility, total utilization of the airport can average over 75%. Airline demand can routinely exceed the level of operations sustainable during severe weather conditions.
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FAA Airport Capacity Benchmark 2004 (Updated June 1, 2010); http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/publications/bench/ 8 Airport arrival rates (AAR) and Airport departure rates (ADR) are actually set on a quarter-hour basis through the day at 77 major U.S. airport facilities. They are available under authorization at aspm.faa.gov. 9 Aggregate airline demand means the total demand by all carriers that have scheduled flight departures from a given airport at a point in time. Individual airline demand would capture flight departures for a given carrier only. February 16, 2012 Page 17
7
Table 2: Airport Utilization vs. Capacity Source: FAA ASPM Full-Year 2009, 7am-10pm Time Window
% DepDly = Percent of flights delayed by 15+ minutes at departure Av Delay = average minutes of delay for delayed flights
Name of Airport New York LaGuardia Newark Liberty Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson New York John F. Kennedy Philadelphia International Chicago O'Hare Washington Reagan San Francisco International San Diego Lindbergh Charlotte/Douglas Int'l Capacity 424,913 469,685 1,205,933 485,967 579,855 1,141,379 394,189 531,344 278,107 768,646 Flights 341,380 366,744 926,551 368,778 404,097 765,937 256,876 321,660 162,753 445,110 Utilization 80.3% 78.1% 76.8% 75.9% 69.7% 67.1% 65.2% 60.5% 58.5% 57.9% % DepDly 21.3% 26.6% 22.4% 22.5% 24.2% 21.0% 16.4% 23.1% 18.8% 18.6% Av Delay 34.7 41.0 41.0 40.8 38.0 45.6 27.6 35.5 20.4 29.1
In Table 2, capacity refers to the rate of arrivals and departures that the aircraft reported it could handle during the full year of 2009. This is based on the cumulative capacity sum of every quarter-hour measurement reported. Flights reflect the departures and arrivals scheduled as the annual sum of each quarter-hour, and utilization is the planned ratio of flights to capacity. There is an observable relationship between airport utilization and delays, particularly as the percentage utilization of given airports exceeds 70%. The correlation coefficient for major airport facilities between utilization and departure delays in 2009 (during peak hours of 7am to 10pm) was 0.56, and the relationship strengthens as utilization approaches 100%. But there are many highly utilized airports in the U.S. that operate during peak hours with above-average performance and low flight delays. Examples include San Diego (60.2% utilized during peak hours, but with delays 20% below average) and Houston Intercontinental (also 60% utilized, with departure delays approximating the national average). There are also airports with utilization below 50% that suffer from significant delays. Washington Dulles and Denver. Examples include Orlando International, But when smaller airport facilities are mixed in among major
hub airports, the correlation co-efficient drops to less significant levels. Airport capacity and utilization alone are not sufficient to explain which airports will suffer from extended, frequent or regular delay patterns from external causes such as weather.10 Airlines cannot assess capacity at a given airport and draw conclusions about what operational demand will be acceptable given that carriers parameters and targets for on-time performance.
10 It is worth noting that at connecting hubs, delays may be caused by airlines holding aircraft to maximize connections. This is particularly true on longer-haul flights where en-route times may permit catching up after a late departure to ensure an on-time arrival at the destination.
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Airport capacity is fungible. It is a subjective metric given the quantitative (runway, ramp and airspace) and qualitative (human factors) involved. Some airports (including Seattle, Baltimore, Cleveland, Los Angeles and Tampa) routinely achieve operational throughput well in excess of their respective FAA capacity benchmarks, while others (including Memphis, Portland, Detroit, and Boston) operate comfortably below the FAA benchmark definition. For this reason, the FAA benchmarks are not sufficient to assess whether airline schedules are appropriate, or whether conscious over-scheduling of airport resources is occurring. Qualitative factors include human factors (controller experience and flexibility, for example) and independent decisions made by airlines to push or gate hold, which can be quite relevant when assessing an airports throughput. Airlines must review all these factors to align schedules with airport capacity. Airlines have multiple objectives in planning and executing flight schedules. First, they flight schedules to match the times of day when passengers want to fly, and when destination arrivals are available. This simple objective offers direct insight into why airline schedules are bunched at origin and destination airports (versus connecting hubs) around key departure and arrival windows. Business passengers value departures and arrivals that permit full working days. International flights are usually timed around available slots and must account for time zone differentials. As a result, there is an inevitable crowding of departure demand at U.S. airports with strong local market demand during morning and evening hours, with lower volume during the middle of the day. Because of demand patterns, a carriers flexibility to spread flights more consistently through the day in key origin and destination markets is limited. In connecting hubs, airline schedules maximize connecting opportunities for passengers who originated from key markets during peak business hours. Connecting hubs offer an opportunity to fill the gaps in passenger demand peaks and valleys with flights oriented towards connecting passengers instead. This gives airlines more flexibility to spread flights through the day. Indeed, when the major function of an airport is to connect traffic, achieving an on-time operation for both arrivals and departures is key to minimizing cost and maximizing connections. This reformulation of hub operations from peaked to un-peaked (or rolling) flight schedules has had a varying impact on delay levels at major hub airports. 3.4 Delay Patterns and Trends: Overview Before analyzing delay patterns and trends, it is important to assess what normal is in the national airspace system. Over the past 20 years, on-time performance and flight delays have
been highly variable. To assess the causes of this variability, we start with a review of the various factors that impact schedule execution. There are three fundamental trends that impact our analysis of flight delays and cancellation trends: 1. Flight operations have increased over the past 20 years as airlines have introduced new regional jet fleets and developed new operations. Excluding the downturn post-9/11, industry capacity steadily increased to a peak in 2007. 2. On-time arrival performance (percentage of flights to arrive at the destination gate within 15 min. of scheduled arrival) has fluctuated between 65% and 90% on a seasonal basis. 3. The correlation between flight operations and on-time performance is present but weak on an annualized basis. However, as Chart 1b illustrates, when specific months are isolated, the correlation is clearly identifiable. During the winter season, airlines have adapted flight planning in order to favor advance cancellations over risky departures during snow events. Similarly, during the summer, the impact of thunderstorms on arrival performance is amplified at airports where capacity is constrained. Chart 1a: Flight Operations and On-Time Performance Data Source: DOT Part 234 On-Time Reporting Data (Annual -0.26)
700,000 650,000 90% On-Time Arrival Performance 600,000 80% 550,000 500,000 450,000 60% 400,000 50% 350,000 300,000 40% 70% 100%
Red Line - Total Flight Operations per Month
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Jan-90 Oct-90 Jul-91 Apr-92 Jan-93 Oct-93 Jul-94 Apr-95 Jan-96 Oct-96 Jul-97 Apr-98 Jan-99 Oct-99 Jul-00 Apr-01 Jan-02 Oct-02 Jul-03 Apr-04 Jan-05 Oct-05 Jul-06 Apr-07 Jan-08 Oct-08 Jul-09 Apr-10 Total Ops On-Time Arrival Performance
Chart 1b: Correlation Between On-Time Performance and Flight Operations by Month Source: DOT Part 234 On-Time Reporting Data (Annual -0.26)
0.08
4 -0.22
9 -0.21
10
11 -0.21
12
-0.27 -0.43
-0.35 -0.48 -0.58 -0.43
-0.37 -0.46
There are also internal trade-offs at airlines between decisions to delay a given flight versus cancel. As we have shown in prior papers, every flight cancellation decision in todays hub and spoke networks usually results in at least one follow-on flight cancellation due to an aircraft out of position. In contrast, particularly when sufficient aircraft turn time is built into downstream flight operations; aircraft delays can sometimes be isolated to a specific flight segment. Chart 2a: Systemwide Cancellations & Diversions vs. Operations, by Hour Source: DOT Part 234 On-Time Reporting Data
1,000,000! Total Operations Scheduled (BLUE)! 900,000! 800,000! 700,000! 600,000! 500,000! 400,000! 300,000! 200,000! 100,000! 0! Operations! Cancellations/Diversions! 20,000! Total Cancellations & Flight Diversions (RED)! 18,000! 16,000! 14,000! 12,000! 10,000! 8,000! 6,000! 4,000! 2,000! 0!
Departure Time Window! (Local Time at Departure Airport)!
Chart 2a above shows the distribution of airline flight operations for domestic U.S. flights by reporting carriers during 2010. The peak of flight operations during the early morning and late afternoon can be clearly observed. In Chart 2a, the blue line tracks the total number of flight operations scheduled by hour of the day (local time). The red line tracks the number of flight cancellations and flight diversions, demonstrating the sum of irregular flight operations that significantly disrupt downstream flights. There is a spike in cancellation and diversion decisions during the late afternoon hours (from 4pm to 8pm local time). This is primarily due to the combined impact of summer thunderstorm activity and cancellation decisions designed to contain follow-on impact from upstream flight delays. How do airline cancellation decisions by hour of the day compare to flight delay decisions? Given the significant differences in numbers of flight delays, cancellations and diversions relative to total flight operations, it is clearest to express these data on a percentage basis. Chart 2b below demonstrates that (1) airline flight delays start at a relatively low level in the morning and snowball through the day, and (2) cancellation decisions remain more constant on a percentage basis.
Chart 2b: Systemwide Cancellations/Diversions versus Flight Delays As Percentage of Total Scheduled Flight Operations (Full Year 2010) Source: DOT Part 234 On-Time Reporting Data
25%!
20%!
Cancellations/Diversions!
Delay Rate!
15%!
10%!
5%!
0700-0759!
0800-0859!
0900-0959!
1000-1059!
1200-1259!
1300-1359!
1400-1459!
1500-1559!
1600-1659!
1700-1759!
1800-1859!
1900-1959!
2000-2059!
2100-2159!
! 2200-2259!
0%!
Chart 2b has significant implications for our discussion of flight delays. What is causing the steady increase in flight delays through the mid-day and afternoon hours? Are these delay causes controllable by the airlines, and what scheduling differences among carriers make certain
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1100-1159!
carriers more susceptible to snowballing delays versus others? We examine these factors in the next section. 3.5 General Delay Causes Schedule-impacting factors can be broken into three categories: factors that impact flight schedules prior to gate departure, factors that impact flights after push-back from the gate and before takeoff, and factors that influence flights en-route and after landing. Before gate departure, there are many events that can delay a departure, including mechanical issues, staffing, catering and passenger boarding. Security and late inbound arrivals can also disrupt crew boarding and aircraft availability. After gate departure, congestion on the ramp and taxiway can slow progress towards the runway, and de-icing requirements can cause long delays as aircraft queue for position on the de-icing pads. Airspace availability and capacity also impacts not only the pace with which departures can occur, but also may cause ground-delay programs (or EDCT programs, for Expect Departure Clearance Time) that result in long taxi-out times. Table 3 below lists these general factors. Table 3: Factors that Influence On-Time Performance
Before Gate Departure Mechanical events Crew availability Supplier delivery Passenger & cargo boarding Ramp personnel & equipment Weather conditions Late inbound arrival of aircraft Security delays (airline or TSA) Awaiting Takeoff Ramp congestion Taxiway congestion Visibility Number of aircraft: Awaiting taxi Queued for runway In the arrival sequence De-icing time & sequencing Runway contamination Departure flow (runways) Airspace capacity: En-route airspace separation En-route airspace blocks Acceptance rate at destination En-Route and Landing Convective activity, turbulence and en-route winds Weather at destination and alternate airport (IFR, etc.) Departure and arrival queues at destination airport Concurrent runway operations Taxiway and ramp congestion Gate availability Visibility approach & ground
To track delay causes and effects, we utilize airline-reported flight on-time performance detail. Starting in October 2008, major U.S. airlines (and several regional affiliates) began reporting to DOT the causes of flight delays, when flights arrived at their destination 15 minutes or more after their scheduled arrival time. No reporting was required for flights that arrived at their destination within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival time, or for diverted flights.
Airline reports categorize delays into five categories. Carriers may elect to report all causes of a given flight delay, if more than one cause exists, or simply to report the predominant causal factor. The DOT specifies which delay codes airlines should use, the criteria that apply for determining the causal factor of a given flight delay.11 Table 4 below provides general flight departure and on-time arrival information by carrier during the full year 2010. On-time arrival performance ranged from a low of 73.1% for Comair, a regional airline, to 92.5% for Hawaiian, which operates primarily in the good-weather state of Hawaii. On-time arrival performance does not fully state a given carriers marketed flights, as several significant regional airlines and smaller mainline carriers do not report on-time performance data to DOT. Table 4: On-Time Performance by Reporting Carrier, Full Year 2010 Source: Domestic flights, reporting airlines, DOT Part 234 Data (ASQP)
Airline Southwest (WN) Delta (DL) SkyWest (OO) American (AA) Eagle (MQ) US Airways (US) ExpressJet (XE) United (UA) ASA (EV) Pinnacle (9E) AirTran (FL) Continental (CO) JetBlue (B6) Mesa (YV) Comair (OH) Alaska (AS) Frontier (F9) Hawaiian (HA) All Reporting Scheduled 1,124,487 732,973 599,621 540,963 436,976 407,111 385,077 343,081 319,921 261,364 248,844 239,271 201,434 174,797 147,633 136,950 81,966 67,649 6,450,118 % Operations 17.4% 11.4% 9.3% 8.4% 6.8% 6.3% 6.0% 5.3% 5.0% 4.1% 3.9% 3.7% 3.1% 2.7% 2.3% 2.1% 1.3% 1.0% 100.0% On-Time Arrivals 907,274 583,548 487,689 441,855 349,840 344,988 308,658 297,927 261,626 213,543 209,440 197,412 157,066 149,458 113,894 121,089 67,249 62,677 5,275,233 On-Time % 79.5% 77.4% 79.1% 79.6% 77.1% 83.0% 77.8% 85.2% 79.2% 78.5% 82.8% 81.4% 75.7% 83.3% 73.1% 87.6% 81.4% 92.5% 79.8%
Table 4 above demonstrates a significant variance in on-time arrival performance by carriers, clearly impacted by differences in weather, airport efficiency and airline-specific operational factors. These differences can also be observed by plotting airline on-time performance based on the hour of the day (local time). To demonstrate the differences among airlines, we incorporated all available flight performance data for 2010 from reporting carriers and measured on-time performance by departure hour.
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11
http://www.bts.gov/programs/airline_information/accounting_and_reporting_directives/technical_directive.html
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Chart 3 below shows that major network carriers such as Delta, American, United and US Airways follow a similar profile of flight delays by hour of the day. Delays start in the morning primarily due to carrier-related factors including late-inbound flights and mechanical events. Delays build through the day, with between 15% and 25% of departures during the 6pm-8pm window delayed. In contrast, point-to-point carriers such as JetBlue and particularly Southwest Airlines have a more rapid accumulation of flight delays through the day. Southwest (WN) far exceeds other airlines with flight delays during the evening, with more than 40% of departures delayed by the 8pm hour.
Chart 3: Delayed Departures (as Percentage of Scheduled Departures) by Airline By Hour of Departure (Full Year 2010)
Late Gate Departures by Hour of Scheduled Departure Time! 50%! 45%! 40%! 35%! WN! 30%! B6! 25%! 20%! 15%! 10%! 5%! 0700-0759! 0800-0859! 0900-0959! 1000-1059! 1200-1259! 1300-1359! 1400-1459! 1500-1559! 1600-1659! 1700-1759! 1800-1859! 1900-1959! 2000-2059! 2100-2159! 1100-1159! 0%! DL! AA! UA! US!
To identify why delay trends build through the day, we first review how airlines track the different causes of flight delays when data are reported to DOT on a monthly basis. Delay data is collected from 15 U.S. carriers representing 1% or more of total system revenue. Data include specific flight information including departure, arrival, schedule, diversion and cancellation data, but airlines also provide specific delay minutes when a flight is delayed on arrival for 15 minutes or more.
The relevant delay tracking codes include: Carrier caused. Factors involved in carrier-caused cancellations include aircraft
servicing, maintenance or damage repair, connecting passengers, gate/ramp resources, crew legality, paperwork and fueling. In addition, gate congestion, airport curfews, passenger-related security (including bag-match), ramp congestion where the blocking aircraft is under the airlines control, weight and balance, and snow removal are considered carrier-caused factors. Weather. Only weather conditions that explicitly prevent flights from operation are considered causal factors for delays and cancellations. thunderstorms. Examples include below-minimum weather, icing and de-icing requirements, extreme temperatures, hail, lightning, snow and In addition, advance delays (including gate holds and pre-cancellations in advance of gate departure) are considered weather-driven if forecast weather was the primary cause of the cancellation. National Airspace System. Responsibility for NAS delays resides with the FAA, airport operators or state and local agencies. Examples include airport conditions, airport construction, ATC clearance delays, ATC-driven en-route restrictions (including quota flow programs), closed runways, general ramp congestion and volume delays. ATC-outages are also charged to NAS codes. Security. Security-related delays are outside the control of the airline. They include resolution of bomb threats and weapon issues, delays due to Sky Marshals and DHS personnel, and excessive lines at security screening areas or delays resulting from security breaches. Late Arriving Aircraft. When an inbound flight is delayed, the follow-on flight with that specific aircraft may also depart late. In this circumstance, the late arriving aircraft delay minutes are calculated by adding the arrival time of the inbound flight to the scheduled turn time, then subtracting the scheduled departure time of the second delayed flight. Table 5 below summarizes the total number of flights scheduled and the delay minutes associated with each. It shows that carrier-related delay causes represented 30% of overall flight delays, and that the distribution of carrier-related events through the day was relatively steady. Weather- and Airspace- related events constituted 31% of total flight delays, but were highly concentrated during the afternoon and evening hours. Finally, late-arriving inbound aircraft represented the largest share of delays at 39%, with afternoon and evening impact.
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Table 5: Minutes of Flight Delays Source: DOT ASQP Part 234 Reports, Calendar Year2010
Flights 6am-10am 10am-2pm 2pm-6pm 6pm-10pm 10pm-6am Total % of Total 1,748,868 1,678,564 1,641,416 1,199,314 181,956 6,450,118 Carrier 4,601,508 4,297,114 5,307,713 4,432,816 578,354 19,217,505 30% Weather 570,538 486,972 862,096 793,201 72,405 2,785,212 5% Airspace 3,265,070 3,912,112 5,509,225 3,282,911 260,062 16,229,380 26% Security 27,701 18,530 30,251 28,992 1,936 107,410 <1% Late A/C 1,391,586 5,546,464 8,836,291 8,633,832 510,113 24,918,286 39% Total Min. 9,856,403 14,261,192 20,545,576 17,171,752 1,422,870 63,257,793
Chart 4: Minutes of Flight Delays and Percentage of Total Delays Source: DOT ASQP Part 234 Reports, Calendar Year 2010
Security 107,410 0% Weather 2,785,212 5%
Late Inbound 24,918,286 39%
Airspace 16,229,380 26%
Carrier 19,217,505 30%
Chart 4 above provides graphical representation of the delay causes. It is notable that weather-related delay causes are a relatively small share of the overall minutes charged. This is misleading, however, because weather-related delays are usually manifested through airspace congestion and slow-down in departure flows. These effects are attributed to airspace-related delays and can be seen in late inbound delays. We have three observations about flight delays from Table 5. First, the overall
incurrence of carrier- and securityrelated flight delays is largely proportional to the operations of
that carrier. This is not a surprise. Mechanical, crew, security and ramp factors all influence specific flights, so the more flights that operate, the more risk of failure from these causes. Second, weather and airspace factors are linked, reflecting the concurrent impact of weather patterns on airports and the surrounding airspace. evenings. Third, late aircraft delays snowball through the day as the follow-on impact of carrier, weather and airspace delays is felt on future flight departures using the impacted aircraft. Plotting the average minutes of flight delays by cause confirms this. Weather-related delays remain steady throughout the day. Airspace-related delays rise during the afternoon and subside in the evening. Carrier-related cancellations are steady, while the impact of late-inbound aircraft by the mid- and late-afternoon shows the follow-on impact of delay events earlier in the day. Chart 5a shows the average minutes of flight delay per scheduled flight operation. Chart 5a: Average Delay per Scheduled Flight, by Cause and Departure Hour Full Year 2010, U.S. Reporting Carriers on Domestic Flights
Minutes of Delay per Flight Departure (Average)! 9! 8! 7! 6! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! !0600-0659! !0700-0759! !0800-0859! !0900-0959! !1000-1059! !1100-1159! !1200-1259! !1300-1359! !1400-1459! !1500-1559! !1600-1659! !1700-1759! !1800-1859! !1900-1959! !2000-2059! !2100-2159! !2200-2259! 0! Carrier! Airspace! Weather! !2300-2359! Late Inbound!
In addition, weather delays are
strongly influenced by convective weather activity that tends to hit airports during afternoons and
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Chart 5b: Delay Causes for Impacted Flights, by Departure Hour Full Year 2010, U.S. Reporting Carriers on Domestic Flights
Number of Flights Impacted (All Flights 2010)! 120,000! 100,000! 80,000! 60,000! 40,000! 20,000! 0! Delays Caused by Late Arriving Inbound Aircraft! !0001-0559! !0600-0659! !0700-0759! !0800-0859! !0900-0959! !1000-1059! !1100-1159! !1200-1259! !1300-1359! !1400-1459! !1500-1559! !1600-1659! !1700-1759! !1800-1859! !1900-1959! !2000-2059! !2100-2159! !2200-2259! !2300-2359! Other Delay Causes! (Weather, Airspace, Carrier & Security)!
Chart 5b captures all flight delay causes that result in a late arrival (15 or more minutes after scheduled arrival time). It groups Carrier, Weather, Airspace and Security causes into a single category (Red) and isolates Late Arriving Aircraft (Blue). The snowball effect is clear. 3.6 Isolating Different Delay Factors To investigate the causes of airline delays further, we explore factors that we hypothesize are related to delays observed by each carrier. 1. Length of flight by airlines; 2. Exposure to major hub airports; 3. Exposure to airports with high susceptibility to weather events; 4. Exposure to airports with high utilization during peak hours; 5. Scheduled turn times for aircraft at the gate; and 6. Strategic delays (schedule padding) built into the operational plan
3.6.1
Length of Flight
Our first step is to identify any meaningful breaks in on-time performance results for different types of airline routes. We isolated on-time arrival performance for 2010 by the distance of flight, to the nearest 250 miles. As Chart 6 shows, on-time performance is stronger for shorter-haul flights than for longer-haul. For consistency, we excluded all flights that were delayed because of a late inbound aircraft. The resulting correlation coefficient between distance and on-time arrival performance was -0.91, confirming a basic link between the factors. Chart6: On-Time Domestic Performance by Flight Distance Full Year 2010, U.S. Reporting Carriers (Excludes Late Arriving Aircraft Delays)
90.9%! 90.6%! 89.5%! 89.3%! 89.1%! 88.8%! 88.3%! 88.1%! 86.9%! 86.7%! 84.8%!
0!
500!
1,000!
1,500!
2,000!
2,500!
3,000!
Distance of Flight (miles)!
3.6.2
Major Hub Exposure
Earlier we reviewed the systemwide relationship between flight operations and on-time performance. We observe a general correlation coefficient of -0.26, but when isolating specific summer and winter months, the relationship is stronger. Some posit that larger airports, with fuller flight schedules, are more susceptible to departure and arrival delays than smaller facilities. At these airports, how does on-time performance vary across airports in the United States? To assess this, we compare airport data on an individual basis, versus systemwide. We group our base analysis into five sections: 1. Delay and cancellation metrics, by specific airport; 2. Delay and cancellation metrics, by airport size; 3. Percent of flights impacted by different delay codes, by airport size; and 4. Average minutes of delay from different delay codes, by airport size.
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Table 6a summarizes 2010 operating metrics for major airports in the U.S. It captures domestic flight operations for reporting air carriers, using the DOT Part 234 ASQP data set.12 Table 6a: Key Delay and Cancellation Metrics, by Airport Ranked by Airport Departures (Domestic Flights by Reporting Carriers) Source: DOT ASQP Part 234 Reports, Calendar Year 2010
On-Time Arrivals represents completion of flight from selected airport within 15 minutes of schedule Delay minutes are based on impacted flights only
Rank Airport On-Time Departures On-Time Arrivals Cancelled Flights Carrier Delay (Avg) Weather Delay (Avg) Airspace Delay (Avg) Inbound AC Delay (Avg)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
ATL ORD DFW DEN LAX IAH PHX DTW LAS SFO MSP CLT SLC MCO EWR BOS JFK BWI LGA SEA
81.0% 80.0% 80.5% 81.3% 83.5% 83.9% 84.1% 80.2% 79.9% 77.3% 81.4% 84.7% 85.7% 82.0% 79.2% 83.8% 78.1% 77.6% 84.5% 88.5%
79.9% 79.0% 79.6% 81.2% 82.5% 81.1% 83.5% 78.1% 81.5% 78.0% 78.7% 81.6% 82.7% 82.4% 79.8% 81.7% 78.9% 79.8% 81.7% 86.9%
2.0% 2.5% 1.7% 1.0% 1.1% 0.8% 0.8% 2.0% 0.7% 1.9% 1.7% 1.3% 0.8% 1.0% 3.2% 2.7% 3.4% 2.2% 4.2% 0.5%
39.5 min 35.2 33.4 27.5 30.1 31.3 28.6 41.0 25.6 33.8 36.0 34.4 32.3 30.4 32.9 36.8 45.4 26.9 35.1 35.3
45.8 min 31.7 34.4 35.6 54.6 26.6 42.8 53.8 42.5 39.2 46.1 44.6 29.9 34.8 32.5 34.7 69.1 42.6 41.1 32.5
21.5 min 24.1 20.2 20.5 21.1 20.3 20.9 23.2 19.7 16.2 23.9 28.2 21.0 28.3 27.4 27.6 30.7 23.8 29.3 25.4
46.8 min 45.3 33.4 38.3 36.7 42.0 33.5 43.4 37.7 56.5 42.4 38.6 32.8 41.3 56.1 46.4 46.6 37.5 51.7 40.0
We can observe from Table 6a that on-time departures and arrivals are highly variable across airports, even within a specific region. Similarly, flight cancellations range widely, with higher reported numbers in the eastern United States than in the west. Weather delays tend to be significant when they occur compared to airspace delays, but as shown in earlier analysis airspace delays are more prevalent overall. Finally, inbound aircraft delays are more prevalent in the congested northeast than in the west. Table 6b groups airports by the number of flight departures reported to DOT under Part 234 ASQP. Airports are grouped by 25,000 flight increments. The largest bracket of airports report around 125,000 annual departures, with significant concentration of facilities in lower departure levels. Table 6b shows the on-time departure performance for those airports, plus the
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12
DOT ASQP available at www.bts.gov. Data set used includes all 2010 reported information. February 16, 2012 Page 31
ultimate on-time arrival rates for flights leaving those airports. The data confirm that on average, larger hub airports indeed have higher departure delay rates than smaller facilities. Table 6b: Key Delay and Cancellation Metrics, by Departure Level Groupings Source: DOT ASQP Part 234 Reports, Calendar Year 2010
ASQP Flights per Year 0-12,500 12,500-37,500 37,500-62,500 62,500-87,500 87,500-112,500 112,500-137,500 137,500-162,500 162,500-187,500 187,500-212,500 237,500-262,500 262,500-287,500 312,500-337,500 412,500-437,500 All Airports % of Total 11.2% 12.2% 14.3% 8.3% 7.9% 11.3% 6.9% 5.7% 3.1% 3.7% 4.2% 4.9% 6.4% 100.0% OTD% 83.3% 83.5% 81.6% 79.9% 79.5% 81.1% 77.6% 83.2% 82.4% 80.2% 78.8% 77.5% 79.0% 81.0% OTA% 80.8% 81.9% 81.5% 79.4% 78.8% 79.1% 77.4% 81.3% 81.2% 79.9% 77.7% 76.3% 77.7% 79.8% Cxl% 2.4% 1.6% 1.3% 2.0% 2.6% 1.8% 1.5% 0.8% 1.1% 1.0% 1.7% 2.5% 2.0% 1.8%
Table 6c: Percent of Flights Impacted by Delays, by Departure Level Groupings Source: DOT ASQP Part 234 Reports, Calendar Year 2010
Size of Airport 0-12,500 12,500-37,500 37,500-62,500 62,500-87,500 87,500-112,500 112,500-137,500 137,500-162,500 162,500-187,500 187,500-212,500 237,500-262,500 262,500-287,500 312,500-337,500 412,500-437,500 All Airports Carrier 5.1% 6.3% 8.5% 9.5% 9.1% 9.2% 10.8% 10.0% 8.8% 10.2% 12.5% 10.0% 10.8% 8.8% Weather 0.9% 0.7% 0.7% 1.1% 1.0% 1.1% 0.8% 0.9% 0.2% 0.8% 2.8% 2.2% 1.2% 1.0% Airspace 10.2% 9.5% 8.6% 9.9% 10.7% 11.2% 10.2% 10.3% 10.1% 9.9% 11.1% 12.2% 10.7% 10.2% Late Inbound 9.2% 9.0% 9.9% 9.0% 8.0% 8.3% 11.0% 7.0% 9.3% 10.8% 8.8% 10.4% 8.9% 9.1%
The next step is to assess the percentage of flights departing from each airport group that are impacted by carrier, weather, airspace and late inbound delays. Table 6c shows that smaller airports have significantly lower incidence of carrier, weather and airspace-related delays than
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larger hubs. Of note in Table 6c is the consistency of carrier-related delays incurred at larger (hub) airports. Given that crew staffing, catering, maintenance and other infrastructure is concentrated at hubs, it is not surprising that delays are concentrated in larger airports. Table 6d: Of Delayed Flights, Minutes of Delay by Cause, by Departure Groupings Source: DOT ASQP Part 234 Reports, Calendar Year 2010
Size of Airport 0-12,500 12,500-37,500 37,500-62,500 62,500-87,500 87,500-112,500 112,500-137,500 137,500-162,500 162,500-187,500 187,500-212,500 237,500-262,500 262,500-287,500 312,500-337,500 412,500-437,500 All Airports Carrier 44.3 35.3 29.0 34.0 35.5 33.8 34.0 29.9 30.1 27.5 33.4 35.2 39.5 34.0 Weather 57.8 47.8 41.5 45.7 52.4 37.0 48.8 28.7 54.6 35.6 34.4 31.7 45.8 42.4 Airspace 28.8 27.8 24.9 25.5 27.9 25.9 20.3 20.5 21.1 20.5 20.2 24.1 21.5 24.8 Late Inbound 47.9 42.7 38.5 40.2 43.8 42.7 47.2 37.1 36.7 38.3 33.4 45.3 46.8 42.3
Of note is the high degree of impact from airspace delays at smaller airports. This is primarily the impact of ground-delay programs for flights into congested airspace. In contrast, flights from major airports to small cities generally do not face the same airspace constraints. 3.6.3 Performance by Aircraft Type
We review key metrics by aircraft type in Table 6e. We grouped all airports together and use airline-supplied tail numbers to match against aircraft types in the FAA ownership registries. Larger aircraft such as Boeing 767s and Boeing 777s have better arrival and departure performance than regional jets and turboprops. Mid-size aircraft performance varies widely across airlines. The late-inbound aircraft metrics are skewed by Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 fleet, which suffers from chronic on-time performance caused by late inbound arrivals.
Table 6e: Key Metrics by Aircraft Type Source: DOT ASQP Part 234 Reports, Calendar Year 2010, Domestic Flights Only
Aircraft Type Category Boeing 767 Boeing 777 Airbus A320 Boeing 717 Boeing 737 Boeing 757 MD-80 Series Regional Jets Turboprops All Types % of Report 1.1% 0.2% 13.1% 3.6% 28.6% 6.4% 9.4% 35.0% 2.6% 100.0% % Deps Ontime 81.8% 80.3% 83.9% 88.1% 79.6% 81.0% 80.6% 81.6% 80.8% 81.4% % Arrs Ontime 78.8% 80.5% 81.6% 86.3% 80.9% 79.6% 79.2% 79.1% 79.3% 80.2% Carrier Delay % 11.8% 11.0% 8.5% 3.7% 10.3% 9.5% 9.1% 8.1% 5.9% 8.8% Carrier Del Mins 51.7 48.5 31.9 34.7 24.1 39.6 39.1 41.2 36.1 34.0 Weather Delay % 10.9% 11.2% 11.4% 7.2% 9.4% 12.7% 12.4% 12.6% 10.3% 11.2% Weather Del Mins 28.4 29.2 27.4 29.5 22.8 27.9 27.7 27.3 26.0 26.4 Late Inb. Delay % 5.0% 3.9% 7.9% 6.6% 10.8% 7.6% 8.5% 9.1% 12.3% 9.2% Late Inb. Del Mins 52.5 71.2 42.1 56.5 36.7 44.4 42.2 45.4 50.2 42.3
3.6.4
On-Time Performance vs. Departures
To conclude the discussion of general on-time performance metrics versus annual departures, we cross-plot the on-time departure performance of major U.S. airports against the number of annual departures handled. As Chart 7 illustrates, there is a small negative correlation between the size of an airport (measured in annual departures) but the distribution of performance among the bulk of U.S. airport facilities is too significant to draw a meaningful conclusion. In fact, many small airports perform substantially worse than larger facilities on an annual basis. Chart 7: On-Time Performance vs. Airport Size (Departures) Top 35 OEP Airports for Calendar Year 2009
90%! On-Time Departure Performance (% <15 min delay)! 88%! 86%! 84%! 82%! 80%! 78%! 76%! 74%! 72%! 70%!
0! 100,000 ! 200,000 ! 300,000 ! 400,000 ! 500,000 ! 600,000 ! 700,000 ! 800,000 ! 900,000 ! 1,000,000 !
Annual Departures (2009 Flights)!
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3.6.5
Introducing Capacity Utilization
Airport size and observed delays do not show conclusive correlation, so the next step is to assess the utilization of the airport facility. We define utilization as the ratio of scheduled flight operations (arrivals and departures) versus the runway capacity available. efficiently, as ramp, gate, and human factors must be incorporated as well. Using comprehensive FAA airport data for the period from 2000-2010, we reviewed the average airport utilization (comparing scheduled operations with available runway capacity) on an annualized basis during daytime and early evening hours (7am to 10pm local time). To create a holistic view of airline operations and not restrict our analysis to data by reporting airlines via Part 234 filings we utilized the FAA ASPM data set for total scheduled flight operations versus reported arrival and departure capacity (ADR + AAR). 234. The resulting chart is shown as Chart 8. There is a minor negative correlation between scheduled utilization and on-time departures, but again many highly utilized airports nationally outperform facilities with lower aggregate utilization. Chart 8: On-Time Performance (Departures) versus Scheduled Utilization All Flights 2009 between 7am and 10pm, OEP 35 Airports (from FAA ASPM)
100%! On-Time Departures ! (Gate Departure Delays <= 15 min)!
Utilization is a
physical and quantitative measure. It is one factor in considering whether an airport is scheduled
We plotted the resulting capacity
utilization ratio against the on-time departure performance reported for each airport under Part
90%!
80%!
70%!
60%!
50%!
40%! 0%!
10%!
20%!
30%!
40%!
50%!
60%!
70%!
80%!
90%!
Scheduled Utilization of Airport (OAG divided by Runway Capacity)!
The absence of conclusive correlation between aggregate flight schedules, capacity utilization, and late arrivals and departures can be observed in Table 7 below, which provides a comparison of late departure and arrival frequency along with average minutes of delay for airports ranked by utilization of available runway capacity. vs. arrivals) also materially differs by airport. Table 7: Utilization, Late Departures and Arrivals, Selected U.S. Airports 2009 Operations, from FAA ASPM Data Set (Utilization = Scheduled / Capacity)
Code LGA EWR ATL JFK PHL ORD DCA SFO SAN CLT Name of Airport New York LaGuardia Newark Liberty Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson New York John F. Kennedy Philadelphia International Chicago O'Hare Washington Reagan San Francisco International San Diego Lindbergh Charlotte/Douglas Int'l Utilization % 80.3% 78.1% 76.8% 75.9% 69.7% 67.1% 65.2% 60.5% 58.5% 57.9% Late Arrivals 21.3% 26.6% 22.4% 22.5% 24.2% 21.0% 16.4% 23.1% 18.8% 18.6% Delay Minutes 34.7 41.0 41.0 40.8 38.0 45.6 27.6 35.5 20.4 29.1 Late Deps 27.3% 32.2% 26.9% 27.4% 26.7% 19.4% 16.3% 26.9% 20.5% 20.0% Delay Minutes 37.4 47.0 45.3 42.0 37.9 47.1 25.5 38.7 21.3 28.9
Not only are there significant
differences in the actual level of delays observed, but the composition of those delays (departures
Table 7 confirms that conclusive relationships between schedule utilization and late arrivals and departures are difficult to establish. However, observable trends are present. Delay minutes generally decrease as utilization decreases. Late arrivals and departures result in similar delay minutes. 3.6.6 Exposure to Airports with High Weather Susceptibility
One measure of weather impact on flight operations is the frequency of periods, and the length thereof, when airports report weather conditions that require additional radar separation. Because radar separation requirements decrease the usable capacity of airspace corridors to and from each airport, weather reduces the arrival and departure flow to and from an airport. This creates the conditions for weather- and airspace-related delays reported by airlines.
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Table 8: Occurrence of Inclement Weather Conditions

IMC = Instrument Conditions; VMC = (Good) Visual Conditions; Ceiling = ceiling < 1000 feet; Visibility = Visibility < 1 mile CODE SEA MEM STL ATL MSP IAH DTW PDX SFO CLT IAD IMC 30.3% 25.6% 24.4% 23.7% 23.6% 21.6% 20.1% 20.0% 20.0% 19.8% 18.6% VMC 69.7% 74.4% 75.6% 76.3% 76.4% 78.4% 80.0% 80.0% 80.0% 80.2% 81.4% CEILING 6.9% 5.8% 5.1% 9.9% 3.0% 5.5% 3.9% 3.6% 3.0% 8.1% 7.7% VISIBILITY 2.1% 0.3% 0.3% 3.0% 0.5% 1.6% 1.0% 1.6% 0.1% 1.6% 1.8%
Weather has a varying impact on airports in different regions of the country. As Table 8 above shows, airports such as Seattle/Tacoma are frequently impacted by negative weather conditions, with low ceilings, low visibility and precipitation. As Exhibit E shows in detail, airports such as Miami, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Honolulu are all impacted by inclement weather less than 2% of the time. Simply comparing the incidence of weather conditions with on-time departures reveals a low correlation coefficient of just -.011. As Chart 9 indicates, many airports with high occurrence of IFR weather routinely outperform airports with lower occurrence. Chart 9: Occurrence of Bad Weather Conditions vs. Late Departures (Correlation = -.11)
30.0%! Percent of Flights Delayed Deparutres! 25.0%! 20.0%! 15.0%! 10.0%! 5.0%! 0.0%! 0.0%!
5.0%!
10.0%!
15.0%!
20.0%!
25.0%!
30.0%!
35.0%!
Occurrence of Instrument Approach Conditions!
Exploratory analysis confirms that the overall frequency of bad weather conditions is not correlated to low on-time performance, but the variability of that weather is a critical factor. Airports such as Seattle and Memphis are highly optimized for instrument approaches and radar separation. Airlines can also plan schedules with confidence in the arrival and departure rates during bad weather conditions. But when considering airports that have a high variability in weather conditions, such as mid-Atlantic and Southern airports subject to thunderstorm activity, we can observe two factors. First, many airports have a significant loss of capacity during bad weather conditions. Second, some airports have infrequent and unpredictable weather conditions that can paralyze arrivals and departures for extended periods of time. 3.7 Diversions and Cancellations Our analysis has thus far focused on delay causes, but delays are both driven by and causal to cancellations and aircraft diversions. In the next section, we review diversions and flight cancellations by carrier, to compare the rates and causes of incidents against flight delays. 3.7.1 Diversions
Airlines report diversion data for domestic flight segments to the DOT. Airlines report when flights return to their origin, for mechanical or weather, and when flights divert en-route. Flight completion information is included to determine whether the flight ultimately landed at its destination. Table 9 shows flight diversions for reporting U.S. airlines during 2010. The highest diversion rates were reported by American Airlines and its affiliates, reflecting strategic changes made for flights into Dallas/Fort Worth airport under new tarmac taxi-time restrictions. However, regional airlines exhibited higher diversion rates than mainline aircraft, as diversions were more prevalent into smaller airports that sometimes lack precision approach equipment for bad-weather landings. 82% of flights diverted once ultimately landed at their final destinations. For the 1% of diversions that that diverted twice, just 25% completed and the balance cancelled.
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Table 9: Diversions by Reporting U.S. Carriers, 2010 Source: Reporting Carriers, Domestic Flights, FY2010, DOT Part 234 (ASQP)
Airline Southwest (WN) Delta (DL) SkyWest (OO) American (AA) Eagle (MQ) US Airways (US) ExpressJet (XE) United (UA) ASA (EV) Pinnacle (9E) AirTran (FL) Continental (CO) JetBlue (B6) Mesa (YV) Comair (OH) Alaska (AS) Frontier (F9) Hawaiian (HA) All Reporting Flight Diversions 2,166 1,621 1,748 1,957 1,073 683 1,072 748 617 745 631 620 504 373 301 384 167 64 15,474 Div. Rate per 1,000 1.9 2.2 2.9 3.6 2.5 1.7 2.8 2.2 1.9 2.9 2.5 2.6 2.5 2.1 2.0 2.8 2.0 0.9 2.4 Flights w/ 1 Div. 2,135 1,600 1,721 1,940 1,056 675 1,065 737 617 733 627 616 504 373 301 380 166 64 15,310 1 Div. Flts Completed 74% 87% 64% 94% 87% 86% 93% 88% 83% 74% 94% 95% 86% 80% 78% 44% 94% 97% 82% Flights w/ 2 Divs. 30 21 27 17 17 8 7 11 12 4 4 2 Div. Flts Completed 23% 29% 4% 41% 35% 0% 43% 9% 33% 75% 50%
4 1 163
25% 0% 25%
3.7.2
Cancellations
In prior reports we investigated cancellation causes, rates and trends during 2010 versus prior years.13 We found that new consumer-protection regulations effective from April 29, 2010 resulted in a significant spike in cancellation rates. As a result, full-year data from 2010 Overall incorporates both lower (pre-rule) cancellation rates and higher (post-rule) data. without any material change in flight operations level.
cancellations in 2010 were 1.76% of scheduled departures, an increase from 1.39% in 2009 Table 10 below captures cancellation Note that rates by reporting U.S. airline along with the reported causes for each cancellation.
cancellations due to the consumer protection regulations may be classified as carrier, weather or airspace by the carrier, and DOT has not issued guidance about reporting these events nor offered to collect such data in a definitive and consistent format from airlines.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
13
More information can be found at www.tarmaclimits.com February 16, 2012 Page 39
Table 10: Cancellations by Reporting U.S. Carriers, 2010 Source: Reporting Carriers, Domestic Flights, FY2010, DOT Part 234 (ASQP)
Airline Southwest (WN) Delta (DL) SkyWest (OO) American (AA) Eagle (MQ) US Airways (US) ExpressJet (XE) United (UA) ASA (EV) Pinnacle (9E) AirTran (FL) Continental (CO) JetBlue (B6) Mesa (YV) Comair (OH) Alaska (AS) Frontier (F9) Hawaiian (HA) All Reporting Sched. Flights 1,124,487 732,973 599,621 540,963 436,976 407,111 385,077 343,081 319,921 261,364 248,844 239,271 201,434 174,797 147,633 136,950 81,966 67,649 6,450,118 Total Cancels 11,597 14,857 11,932 9,146 12,075 6,290 8,114 5,010 7,517 7,653 2,674 1,986 4,116 3,439 5,645 797 352 55 113,255 Cancel Rate (all) 1.03% 2.03% 1.99% 1.69% 2.76% 1.55% 2.11% 1.46% 2.35% 2.93% 1.07% 0.83% 2.04% 1.97% 3.82% 0.58% 0.43% 0.08% 1.76% Cancels (Carrier) 4,940 6,583 3,801 3,572 2,169 2,902 812 2,178 5,137 5,029 751 211 548 1,397 1,686 313 89 38 42,156 37.2% Cancels (Weather) 6,223 6,961 5,702 4,667 6,246 2,445 5,577 2,479 1,560 1,690 1,632 1,677 3,512 1,513 3,882 461 263 17 56,507 49.9% Cancels (Airspace) 431 1,313 2,428 905 3,656 942 1,725 353 820 933 291 78 55 525 75 23 0 0 14,553 12.8% Cancels (Security) 3 0 1 2 4 1 0 0 0 1 0 20 1 4 2 0 0 0 39 0.1%
How do the causes of cancellations as reported during 2010 compare with the causes of flight delays? Carrier-related cancellations represented 37% of all cancellations, while carrierrelated delays were 30% of total reported delays. Weather-related cancellations were 49.9% of cancellations, while just 5% of delays. Airspace factors caused 12.8% of cancellations, versus 26% of delays. Security factors caused less than 1% of both delays and cancellations. And 39% of delays were due to late arriving aircraft, with no comparable cancellation category. Table 11 below splits these causal factors into controllable factors (carrier-coded) and uncontrollable factors (weather- and airspace-coded), with a negligible number of securityrelated cancellation data points. The table shows that airlines with significant northeastern exposure were most impacted by uncontrollable cancellation factors. In contrast, most major carrier cancellations were split between controllable and uncontrollable causes.
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Table 11: Cancellation Types by Reporting U.S. Carriers, 2010 Source: Reporting Carriers, Domestic Flights, FY2010, DOT Part 234 (ASQP) Controllable: Carrier-Related Causes; Uncontrollable: Weather- and Airspace-Related Causes
Airline Hawaiian (HA) ASA (EV) Pinnacle (9E) US Airways (US) Delta (DL) United (UA) Southwest (WN) Mesa (YV) Alaska (AS) American (AA) SkyWest (OO) Comair (OH) AirTran (FL) Frontier (F9) Eagle (MQ) JetBlue (B6) Continental (CO) ExpressJet (XE) All Reporting Cancel Rate 0.08% 2.35% 2.93% 1.55% 2.03% 1.46% 1.03% 1.97% 0.58% 1.69% 1.99% 3.82% 1.07% 0.43% 2.76% 2.04% 0.83% 2.11% 1.76% Controllable 69% 68% 66% 46% 44% 43% 43% 41% 39% 39% 32% 30% 28% 25% 18% 13% 11% 10% 37% Uncontrollable 31% 32% 34% 54% 56% 57% 57% 59% 61% 61% 68% 70% 72% 75% 82% 87% 89% 90% 63%
3.8
Airline-Specific Delays and Adaptations We have demonstrated that controllable delay factors, including delays due to carrier-
specific factors (including mechanical events, ramp and gate availability delays, and crew staffing imbalances) are largely proportional to the total volume of flight operations by the carrier. The occurrence of carrier-caused delays changes linearly in proportion to total flight operations by the carrier. In an environment where on-time performance is measured by a single standard arrival at gate within 15 minutes and where DOT routinely ranks carriers based on this single standard, is it reasonable to expect that carriers can absorb variations in uncontrollable factors through scheduling decisions in advance? In Table 6a through 6d, we presented flight delay metrics by airport category, focusing on the number of departures from a given airport and the causes of delays observed. In Table 12 below, we aggregate all departures across airports and break the results by airline. We observe
immediately that system delay minutes are largely proportional to total flight operations, and but that there are notable differences between delay patterns among airlines. Table 12: Delay Composition by Reporting U.S. Carriers, 2010 Source: Reporting Carriers, Domestic Flights, FY2010, DOT Part 234 (ASQP)
System Statistics Airline Southwest (WN) Delta (DL) SkyWest (OO) American (AA) Eagle (MQ) US Airways (US) ExpressJet (XE) United (UA) ASA (EV) Pinnacle (9E) AirTran (FL) Continental (CO) JetBlue (B6) Mesa (YV) Comair (OH) Alaska (AS) Frontier (F9) Hawaiian (HA) All Reporting Flights 1,124,487 732,973 599,621 540,963 436,976 407,111 385,077 343,081 319,921 261,364 248,844 239,271 201,434 174,797 147,633 136,950 81,966 67,649 6,450,118 Delay Min 10,029,222 8,195,204 6,211,902 5,565,988 4,777,239 2,961,104 4,320,595 2,660,172 3,880,916 2,614,748 2,250,331 2,076,570 2,717,652 1,411,861 1,903,634 741,330 722,951 216,374 63,257,793 Delay per Flight All Flights 8.9 11.2 10.4 10.3 10.9 7.3 11.2 7.8 12.1 10.0 9.0 8.7 13.5 8.1 12.9 5.4 8.8 3.2 9.8 Impacted 46.2 54.8 55.5 56.2 54.8 47.7 56.5 58.9 66.6 54.7 57.1 49.6 61.3 55.7 56.4 46.7 49.1 43.5 53.8 Carrier 28% 36% 22% 36% 29% 29% 24% 25% 34% 35% 18% 30% 35% 35% 48% 32% 22% 73% 30% Cause of Delay Weather & Airspace 17% 33% 27% 33% 34% 40% 37% 33% 23% 29% 32% 46% 30% 26% 44% 33% 29% 2% 30% Late Inbound 55% 32% 50% 31% 37% 30% 39% 43% 42% 36% 50% 24% 35% 39% 8% 35% 49% 25% 39%
The next section assesses how airlines have internalized the expected delay patterns observed in the domestic system. To what extent have airlines changed their gate turn patterns (the amount of time between gate arrival and gate departure for aircraft on subsequent flights)? 3.8.1 Scheduled Turn Times
In May 2010, GAO commented that it believed flight delays for carriers with short scheduled turn times would be higher towards the end of the day, versus carriers with more turn time built into their schedules and therefore more slack to recover from operational disruptions. To assess this hypothesis, we analyzed turn time and delay data for domestic flights by reporting carriers during June 2010. The volume of data and complexity of matching aircraft turns necessitated picking a single month for analysis. Our analysis focused on scheduled flights, not actual performance, but on-time performance and cancellation rates during June 2010 were not abnormal.
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To ensure consistency in the data sample, we used the following criteria to narrow our analysis. We first collected all flight-level data for June 2010 from reporting U.S. carriers on domestic flight operations. There were a total of 551,687 scheduled flights in the overall data set. From this set, we excluded all flights that were either (i) diverted, (ii) cancelled, (iii) did not have a tail number assigned, or (iv) occurred as the first flight of the day. This resulted in a set of 398,723 flights over one month where aircraft turns from a previous flight and to a subsequent flight could be clearly identified on an aircraft-specific basis. Our methodology created an authoritative (actual) data set, not one based on interpolation from published airline schedules. However, our data set was based on domestic flights only, and to exclude inside turns for international flight operation where an aircraft would operate a quick international round-trip before returning to the domestic system we excluded aircraft turns from our analysis that were greater than 240 minutes. We also excluded aircraft turns of less than 20 minutes, as these flights were universally aircraft swaps not planned in advance. The final data set had 302,399 flight turns for analysis across the reporting carriers. The result was the following average turn time by carrier, systemwide during 2010. Chart 10 below shows the distribution of planned turn times between 20 minutes and 100 minutes (224,096 total flights). It shows a steady distribution of aircraft turns between 25 minutes and 50 minutes, with a downward slope of aircraft turns for 55 minutes or greater. The importance of Chart 10 is that the shorter the turn, the more likely a late arrival (defined as 15 minutes or greater after scheduled arrival time) will impact a follow-on flight segment. If an airline can actually turn a flight in a minimum of 30 minutes, then a 45-minute turn time is required to isolate a late arrival from inbound delays.
Chart10: Turn Time Distribution (20-100 minutes scheduled) Source: Reporting Carriers, Domestic Flights, June 2010, DOT Part 234 (ASQP)
33,328!
25,207!
23,858!
23,881!
Domestic Turns June 2010 (224,096 total)!
22,810!
23,604! 15,447!
11,684!
8,054!
5,260!
5,706!
4,506!
3,064!
2,313!
1,808!
1,349!
20! 25! 30! 35! 40! 45! 50! 55! 60! 65! 70! 75! 80! 85! 90! 95! 100! Turn Time Rounded to Nearest 5 Minutes!
We now break turn times out by carrier to demonstrate the significant differences among airlines, and set the foundation to link aircraft turn times to delay and cancellation metrics. Table 13 presents scheduled turn-time statistics by airline, by aircraft type. To isolate aircraft types, we matched the tail numbers reported for each flight arrival and departure pair against the aircraft type data in the FAA Registry. We grouped aircraft into three categories: regional (including all Bombardier CRJ, Embraer 145 and 170/190 series and turboprop aircraft), narrowbody (primarily Boeing 717 and 737, Airbus 320 series and DC-9/MD-80 aircraft) and widebody and international (including the Boeing 757). Given the high utilization of Boeing 757 aircraft in international operations and the subsequent difficultly of isolating 757 turns as purely domestic pairings without short inside turns we grouped the type with its international peers. Table 13 provides both mean and standard deviations of turn times. The highest
prevalence of turns is Southwest Airlines, which has not only the lowest mean turn time, but also the smallest standard deviation. Southwest adheres firmly to its model of fast turns with few exceptions. Other low-cost carriers (Frontier and AirTran) also have low variability in turn design, with standard deviations less than major airlines, but buffer their operations with higher mean levels. Table 14 breaks turn times into departure hours, showing that carriers generally budget more turn time during the peak afternoon hours than during the mornings.
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993!
Table 13: Scheduled Turn-Time Statistics, by Carriers That Report Source: DOT ASQP Part 234 Reports, June 2010
All Types Carrier Southwest (WN) Hawaiian (HA) Eagle (MQ) ExpressJet (XE) SkyWest (OO) AirTran (FL) Frontier (F9) Mesa (YV) ASA (EV) JetBlue (B6) Pinnacle (9E) Comair (OH) American (AA) Delta (DL) Alaska (AS) United (UA) US Airways (US) Continental (CO) Turns 77,251 4,797 26,069 25,821 38,781 17,039 5,420 10,856 21,510 11,280 17,193 7,921 28,550 43,174 8,697 19,317 23,170 11,877 Mean 30.0 39.6 43.2 44.8 44.9 45.2 48.4 49.7 49.9 52.1 54.3 58.4 59.0 61.2 61.9 62.8 67.4 68.5 St Dev. 10.3 25.2 30.7 28.6 28.6 16.4 18.0 25.1 31.9 22.2 32.8 37.1 20.9 29.5 30.8 28.9 26.1 28.2 60.6 24.2 53.3 49.7 49.9 44.4 54.3 58.4 11.5 25.1 31.9 20.4 32.8 37.1 55.5 57.5 61.9 56.5 68.1 66.8 17.5 26.7 30.8 24.7 25.9 27.7 73.8 88.9 80.8 32.3 40.6 28.2 77.4 73.8 26.6 34.8 56.6 21.9 43.2 44.8 44.9 30.7 28.6 28.6 45.2 48.4 16.4 18.0 Regionals Mean St Dev Narrowbody Mean 30.0 33.5 St Dev 10.3 12.1 112.4 28.1 757 & Widebody Mean St Dev
Note: Airlines including Spirit, Virgin America and Republic do not report this and other data
Table 14: Turn Time Distribution (20-240 minutes) by Time of Day Source: Reporting Carriers, Domestic Flights, June 2010, DOT Part 234 (ASQP)
Row Labels 0001-0559 0600-0659 0700-0759 0800-0859 0900-0959 1000-1059 1100-1159 1200-1259 1300-1359 1400-1459 1500-1559 1600-1659 1700-1759 1800-1859 1900-1959 2000-2059 2100-2159 2200-2259 2300-2359 24 Hours American 49 76 69 62 55 56 56 57 57 57 58 60 60 58 61 63 73 77 80 59 JetBlue 94 68 49 49 49 47 51 52 49 53 54 53 48 50 49 60 74 70 52 Continental 61 76 65 73 63 67 62 71 64 63 64 64 71 71 72 85 85 124 69 Delta 51 61 58 59 60 58 54 57 56 60 55 59 57 70 70 78 91 115 61 Southwest 30 26 28 29 30 29 30 31 31 31 31 31 31 30 29 28 All Carriers 49 42 42 44 48 47 48 46 48 48 48 46 48 47 52 53 66 78 95 49
30
We now connect airline turn times to departure delay times observed. Table 15 groups carriers into four categories: all carriers, representing all reporting airlines during June 2010; regional airlines (ExpressJet, Mesa, Pinnacle, Atlantic Southeast, SkyWest and Comair); Majors (US Airways, Delta, Northwest, United, US Airways, Frontier, AirTran, Alaska and Hawaiian); and finally Southwest. Southwest is isolated because its turn time and delay metrics are significantly different from its peers. Table 15 shows that (1) scheduled turn times for all carriers generally increase during the evening hours, but delay minutes also increase; (2) regionals are more impacted by delay minutes than mainline; and (3) Southwests fast turn times are directly connected to follow-on flight impact as the day progresses. Table15: Turn Time Distribution (20-240 minutes) by Time of Day, Southwest vs. Others Source: Reporting Carriers, Domestic Flights, June 2010, DOT Part 234 (ASQP)
In Minutes Departure 0001-0559 0600-0659 0700-0759 0800-0859 0900-0959 1000-1059 1100-1159 1200-1259 1300-1359 1400-1459 1500-1559 1600-1659 1700-1759 1800-1859 1900-1959 2000-2059 2100-2159 2200-2259 2300-2359 All Deps. All Carriers Turn Delay 49.3 0.0 41.6 2.2 42.2 1.3 44.4 1.7 48.2 2.1 46.9 2.9 47.7 3.4 46.3 4.1 47.8 4.4 47.9 5.3 48.0 5.8 46.1 7.2 47.9 8.4 47.5 9.6 52.4 10.4 53.0 10.3 65.9 7.4 78.2 3.9 94.8 1.0 49.2 5.8 Regionals Only Turn Delay 30.4 39.2 45.6 51.5 45.4 44.9 42.5 44.5 45.9 44.3 41.4 44.0 43.0 56.1 60.7 73.2 79.8 73.9 47.5 2.7 1.8 2.4 2.9 4.4 4.8 5.7 6.0 7.1 7.3 8.7 9.8 10.7 10.9 10.2 7.2 5.4 3.1 6.8 Majors (ex. WN) Turn Delay 49.3 0.0 56.4 1.0 61.7 0.7 55.3 1.0 57.1 1.6 56.0 2.0 57.1 2.2 56.3 2.9 57.3 3.1 56.6 3.8 57.8 4.3 57.6 5.5 58.5 6.7 58.7 7.6 60.6 8.7 61.6 8.1 71.3 6.3 77.7 3.4 95.5 0.9 59.2 4.5 Southwest Turn Delay 29.5 26.1 28.4 29.4 29.8 29.2 29.9 30.6 31.3 30.8 31.5 30.9 30.6 29.6 28.8 27.6 10.6 0.9 1.3 1.4 2.0 3.4 4.1 4.5 5.5 6.3 7.5 9.6 12.3 12.8 14.5 11.8
30.0
6.7
This Southwest Impact of incurring significant follow-on flight delays from closely spaced aircraft turns can also be observed in Chart 11, which measures the minutes of delays per flight measured by the scheduled turn time. Not surprisingly, tighter turn times incur higher delays from late inbound arrivals. Other causes are relatively constant across turn times.
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Chart 11: Delay Minutes per Impacted Flight, By Scheduled Turn Time Source: Reporting Carriers, Domestic Flights, June 2010, DOT Part 234 (ASQP)
50.0! 45.0! 40.0! 35.0! 30.0! 25.0! 20.0! 15.0! 10.0! 5.0! 0.0! 20! 25! 30! 35! 40! 45! 50! 55! 60! 65! 70! 75! 80! 85! 90! 95! 100! 105! 110! 115! 120! Carrier! Weather! Airspace! Late Inbound!
How does Southwests turn time and delay pattern compare with a major airline peer? To conduct a specific comparison, we analyzed Southwests scheduled turn times by time of day against US Airways. We selected US Airways as a peer for three reasons: (1) similar exposure in both the western United States (with shared hubs/focus cities at Phoenix and Las Vegas) as well as prominent operations in Florida, the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast; (2) similar fleet composition, with extensive narrowbody aircraft; and (3) US Airways operational performance was among the best of its peers during 2010, making it a useful benchmark against Southwest. Table 16a calculates the average scheduled turn time for Southwest Airlines by hour of the day. Hour windows are in local time, and based on the departure of a given flight. The scheduled turn time measures the amount of time at gate scheduled for that departure after the aircraft arrives from its inbound segment, excluding overnight stays. We also calculated the delay minutes incurred for flights during that window. Table 16b presents the same information for US Airways operations during June 2010. Even though the airlines are primarily domestic in capacity focus, it is immediately clear that US Airways is much more conservative in turn time planning. While US Airways incurs higher airspace impact primarily due to its higher exposure in the Northeast and Charlotte hub operation Southwests exposure to late inbound aircraft is pronounced.
Table16a: Southwest Turn Time Distribution (20-240 minutes) by Time of Day Source: Reporting Carriers, Domestic Flights, June 2010, DOT Part 234 (ASQP)
Row Labels 0600-0659 0700-0759 0800-0859 0900-0959 1000-1059 1100-1159 1200-1259 1300-1359 1400-1459 1500-1559 1600-1659 1700-1759 1800-1859 1900-1959 2000-2059 2100-2159 24 Hours Sch. Turn 29.5 26.1 28.4 29.4 29.8 29.2 29.9 30.6 31.3 30.8 31.5 30.9 30.6 29.6 28.8 27.6 30.0 Carrier 0.3 12.5 7.4 8.0 8.3 8.3 8.4 7.3 7.3 7.9 8.4 7.8 7.6 8.3 8.4 9.1 8.0 Weather 0.0 2.4 6.3 6.2 3.5 1.2 2.6 2.4 4.5 5.5 5.0 4.4 3.5 1.9 0.8 1.1 3.3 Airspace 30.5 10.8 14.4 9.6 10.4 6.7 7.4 8.6 8.0 7.7 8.1 8.1 5.4 4.8 3.6 3.2 6.8 Security 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 Late Inb. 58.5 14.3 18.8 16.5 20.0 26.7 26.8 26.7 26.0 26.5 29.1 32.1 36.9 37.3 38.1 34.9 31.0
Table 16b: US Airways Turn Time Distribution (20-240 minutes) by Time of Day Source: Reporting Carriers, Domestic Flights, June 2010, DOT Part 234 (ASQP)
Row Labels 0700-0759 0800-0859 0900-0959 1000-1059 1100-1159 1200-1259 1300-1359 1400-1459 1500-1559 1600-1659 1700-1759 1800-1859 1900-1959 2000-2059 2100-2159 2200-2259 24 Hours Sch. Turn 66.7 63.0 67.0 63.9 69.1 61.9 63.2 64.7 68.9 71.6 65.7 70.7 59.3 66.8 70.0 83.4 67.4 Carrier 10.5 13.1 13.0 19.5 10.3 13.9 10.0 9.2 7.4 8.2 7.0 10.8 6.6 9.7 9.0 10.7 9.6 Weather 0.0 0.0 0.7 0.0 0.1 1.1 2.2 2.3 5.7 4.7 4.8 4.7 2.0 0.2 0.5 0.0 2.7 Airspace 21.1 19.8 13.0 14.2 17.9 19.3 24.1 30.1 26.8 25.3 22.8 19.2 13.2 14.8 8.1 9.4 20.0 Security 0.0 0.0 0.3 0.2 0.0 0.9 0.0 0.0 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.1 0.1 Late Inb. 3.2 3.1 8.4 5.9 9.6 16.5 12.0 9.9 10.1 16.3 21.6 17.7 28.1 21.0 32.0 14.7 15.9
Finally, we investigated whether Southwests weighting of short turns was significantly different from other low-cost carriers, and whether US Airways moderate pattern was abnormal for other major carriers. We calculated the percentage of total flights scheduled with turn times
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between 20 minutes and 90 minutes. As Chart 12 shows, JetBlue and American have similar aircraft turn weightings, grouping most aircraft turns between 40 and 65 minutes. Southwest skews to faster turns, with most occurring between 20 and 40 minutes, while US Airways schedules longer turns on average. Chart 12: Turn Time Distribution (20-240 minutes) by Flight Total Source: Reporting Carriers, Domestic Flights, June 2010, DOT Part 234 (ASQP)
45%! 40%! 35%! 30%! 25%! 20%! 15%! 10%! 5%! 0%! 20! 25! 30! 35! 40! 45! 50! 55! 60! 65! 70! 75! 80! 85! 90!
American!
JetBlue!
US Airways!
Southwest!
3.8.2
Increases in Aircraft Turn Times, 2005-2010
Based on the trends observed, we believed that a significant improvement in on-time performance between 2007 and 2010 was achieved through strategic delay management that is, by building buffers into flight schedules through longer turn times and through longer en-route times. The first step to test this hypothesis was to assess the change in scheduled turn times, both for key airports with a history of congestion and for specific carriers. To collect this data, we used the same methodology as above to build a pool of identified aircraft turns where a specific aircraft performed consecutive inbound and outbound flights at a specific airport. To compare data across years, we isolated reported schedules for the first Wednesday of June in each year and identified valid turns, excluding overnight stays. Table 17 below shows that on a systemwide basis, scheduled turn times increased by 4.2% between 2005 and 2010. At this summary level, trends in on-time performance mirror changes in aircraft turn times, with minimum turns and maximum delays observed in 2007. By
airline, American, Continental, AirTran, US Airways and Southwest showed significant increases in turn times. Deltas reduction was likely the result of integrating Northwest Airlines in 20082009, which had used shorter turn time strategies than Delta at its Minneapolis and Detroit hubs. JetBlue and United showed no meaningful changes. Table 17: Change in Average Scheduled Turn Time, By Airline, 2005-2010 Source: Reporting Carriers, Domestic Flights, First Wednesday of June, DOT Part 234 (ASQP)
2005 American JetBlue Continental Delta (a) AirTran United US Airways Southwest Group 54.1 56.2 62.4 64.9 41.2 63.7 54.1 26.4 48.2 2006 53.3 55.6 64.0 65.1 41.8 61.0 59.8 26.3 48.0 2007 52.0 51.5 59.6 64.6 41.7 59.5 58.8 27.6 46.7 2008 56.6 54.2 63.8 64.9 43.2 62.4 64.7 29.1 48.7 2009 57.6 51.6 67.8 62.3 42.7 63.7 67.6 28.6 48.3 2010 59.1 54.8 72.3 61.6 45.5 63.7 66.7 30.3 50.2 Change 9.3% -2.4% 15.8% -5.0% 10.4% -0.1% 23.2% 14.8% 4.2%
(a) Delta turns impacted by Northwest integration 2009-2010
We then isolated the change in aircraft turn times by airport, across all reporting airlines. The changes ongoing at former Northwest hubs as Delta adapted former Northwest strategies to its combined network were evident. Detroit, Memphis and Minneapolis all showed 40% or greater increases in scheduled turn times. Phoenix and Las Vegas showed significant increases due to changes to US Airways turn strategies and on-time performance focus. Increases were evident at congested airports such as JFK (23.7%), Houston Intercontinental (21.9%), Newark (18.3%) and Philadelphia (17.3%). LaGuardia showed a decrease of 5.9% in turn times, but this is distorted by slot controls and trading restrictions that force specific departure and arrival times, which result in sub-optimal aircraft turns. Of the airports showing a decrease in turn times, several reflect a change in the overall traffic mix towards low-cost carriers, and particularly to Southwest. (longer) legacy airline turns. Atlanta, Seattle, Fort Lauderdale, Pittsburgh, and Denver all saw increased low-cost carrier penetration, with fewer Denver in particular saw rapid growth by both Frontier and Southwest. Finally Honolulu became less congested in general as Aloha Airlines went bankrupt, leaving Hawaiian as the dominant inter-island competitor to dominate domestic operations.
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Table 18: Change in Average Scheduled Turn Time, By Airport, 2005-2010 Source: Reporting Carriers, Domestic Flights, First Wednesday of June, DOT Part 234 (ASQP)
Airport DTW PHX MEM MSP BWI JFK MKE SMF HOU IAH BTV LAS EWR MDW PHL ORD CLE 2005 42.2 34.9 43.6 47.4 32.3 63.0 39.2 31.0 26.1 65.3 35.3 37.4 58.8 29.8 50.1 55.9 55.6 2010 66.2 52.6 62.9 66.8 41.8 77.9 48.3 38.2 31.9 79.6 42.0 44.5 69.6 34.9 58.7 63.5 59.6 Change 57.0% 50.8% 44.2% 40.9% 29.1% 23.7% 23.4% 23.2% 22.0% 21.9% 19.1% 18.8% 18.3% 17.2% 17.2% 13.5% 7.1% Airport IAD DFW CLT MIA MCO DCA LAX ATL SEA FLL BOS LGA SLC SFO PIT DEN HNL 2005 57.5 53.3 62.2 63.9 44.7 51.4 54.5 64.1 55.3 47.4 54.9 54.4 57.4 71.0 51.2 59.7 134.4 2010 60.7 55.9 65.0 66.5 46.5 53.0 56.2 61.6 52.6 44.7 51.7 51.3 53.2 61.2 43.7 50.3 107.9 Change 5.5% 4.9% 4.5% 4.1% 3.9% 3.1% 3.0% -3.9% -4.9% -5.8% -5.8% -5.9% -7.4% -13.9% -14.7% -15.7% -19.7%
From this analysis, we conclude that airlines have internalized the risk from late inbound flights at congested U.S. airports by consciously expanding aircraft turn times. This buffer we believe explains why flight delays have declined significantly after the peak in 2007, when both on-time performance was at its worst and turn times at their shortest. The outlier in turn times continues to be Southwest, which not surprisingly has recently reported sub-average on-time performance statistics. Scheduled turn times represent one buffer against the follow-on impact of flight delays in an airlines system. Adding time buffer to scheduled en-route times or padding the flight schedule, as some call the practice is another method to ensure that ordinary variability in flight schedule performance due to weather, carrier, and airspace factors is incorporated into customer expectations and aircraft utilization plans. In the next section, we review changes to airline en-route times and assess the degree to which airlines have embraced differences in en-route time planning.
3.9
Schedule Padding Schedule padding reflects strategic delay management by airlines, incorporating into
planned en-route (gate to gate) time the expected delays from controllable, uncontrollable and follow-on factors. There are three primary reasons to build some level of flight delays into enroute times, versus incurring a delay only on the impacted flights. First, DOT press releases and media activity focus on airline arrival performance measured against the scheduled arrival time, without consideration to mitigating factors (such as the average en-route time on a given route). It is understandable that DOT seeks a single standard to apply to all domestic flight operations, but this arrivals-based standard independent of other factors creates a strong incentive for airlines to manage delays by ensuring all but extraordinary situations will be internalized into their schedule. Airlines can create whatever on-time performance they want to achieve by adding scheduled minutes to delay-prone flights, although there is a costly trade-off in crew pay and aircraft utilization. In turn, placing high in the DOT ontime list creates an objective standard for an airline to advertise and compare with its peers. Second, customer flight connections are based on scheduled arrival and departure times. For connecting itineraries, it is essential that minor variability in the inbound arrival time at the hub is incorporated into the minimum connect time standards applied. Building a schedule buffer into each flight minimizes the number of missed connections. Third, passengers complain about late arrivals, but few complain about landing early, even if a gate wait is involved. The actual en-route time that a flight should require is opaque to the customer. Customer satisfaction is a key driver. So why arent flights padded with 15 or 30 minutes of extra time? The answer is cost and utilization. Most carriers pay crews based on the greater of actual or scheduled block time, so schedule padding means higher labor costs. Schedule padding can reduce the available time for a aircraft, as the subsequent departure time is fixed regardless of what time an inbound arrival occurs. 3.9.1 Schedule Padding in 2010 In considering airline schedule buffers, our hypothesis was that airlines with comparatively short turn times at each airport would exhibit higher schedule padding than carriers with longer turn times. We also expected to see a significant increase in schedule padding as carriers managed towards (somewhat arbitrary) 15-minute arrival delay standards defined by
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DOT. Data is from the DOT Part 234 ASQP focused on the differences between scheduled and actual en-route times. We exclude flights delayed due to late inbound aircraft. Chart 13 presents the average schedule pad by time of day, across the U.S. system for all reporting carriers. The percentages denote the average of the differences between actual en-route time and scheduled en-route time for each route. For example, during the 1300-1359 time block, the average difference between scheduled and actual en-route time was 2.9%, with the actual time faster. As the day progresses, and as late arriving aircraft compound irregular operations, airlines build additional buffer into their flight schedules. Table 13 shows that airlines put a roughly 2-4% buffer in their operation. We then grouped the difference between actual and scheduled en-route time by the distance of planned flight. Table 19 below shows that as the flight distance decreases, the schedule pad increases dramatically (due to the variability in taxi times, as we show later). Chart 13: Schedule Padding (Normal Operations Scheduled vs. Actual Block Time) All Carriers, Full Year 2010, by Departure Time Block
! ! ! ! 2000-2059!
-3.8%!
0700-0759!
0800-0859!
0900-0959!
1000-1059!
1200-1259!
1300-1359!
1400-1459!
1500-1559!
1600-1659!
1700-1759!
1800-1859!
-1.9%!
-2.5%!
1100-1159!
-2.8%!
-2.8%!
-2.8%!
-2.9%!
-3.0%!
-2.9%!
-3.1%!
-2.9%!
-2.8%!
-3.2%!
-3.3%!
1900-1959!
Table 19: Schedule Padding (Normal Operations Scheduled vs. Actual Block Time) 2010 By Length of Flight Segment (Domestic Flights by Reporting Carriers)
DISTANCE 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1,000 % PADDING 27% 23% 20% 17% 16% 14% 13% 12% 11% 11% DISTANCE 1,100 1,200 1,300 1,400 1,500 1,600 1,700 1,800 1,900 2,000 % PADDING 11% 10% 9% 9% 8% 9% 9% 9% 8% 8% DISTANCE 2,100 2,200 2,300 2,400 2,500 2,600 2,700 2,800 2,900 3,000 % PADDING 8% 7% 8% 8% 8% 7% 8% 7% 7% 5%
-3.7%!
2100-2159!
Chart 14 below graphs the information in Table 19 with the addition of a trend line, and without the 100-mile groupings in the table. A pronounced curve is observed with deviation increasing at transcontinental and US-Hawaii flights. Chart 14: Spread in En-Route Performance by Distance of Route Percentage difference between actual/scheduled block time ratios under normal and irregular operation conditions (Full Year 2010)
30%! Spread between Actual and Schedlued En-route Time (Delayed vs. Not Delayed)!
25%!
20%!
15%!
10%!
5%!
0%! 0! 500! 1,000! 1,500! 2,000! 2,500! 3,000! 3,500! 4,000! 4,500! 5,000! Distance of Flight (miles)!
The data suggest that the downward curve observed in Table 19 and Chart 14 is due to variability in ground time. As Exhibit G shows, the variability in scheduled airtime (block time minus ground taxi time) is significantly lower than overall gate-to-gate times. 3.9.2 Taxi-Out Time Variability When planning schedules, airline operations teams must incorporate the natural variability of airport taxi times. The primary bottleneck after gate departure is the rate at which the national airspace system can accept flight departures from a given airport. This causes taxi times for flight departures to be longer, and more variable, than taxi times for flight arrivals at a destination, when the primary causes for long taxi times are related to gate availability and airline ramp congestion.
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Both taxi-out and taxi-in times are impacted by physical factors as well, including (1) the absolute distance from gates to the runway; (2) runway intersections that force aircraft to hold for arriving or departing runway operations; (3) intersecting runways that restrict departure flows; and (4) the amount of ramp and taxiway infrastructure available for run-ups, ground delay programs and passenger services during extended tarmac waits. To begin our analysis of taxi-out time variability in 2010, we collected average taxi-out times for the full year across 13 key airports subject to long taxi times and congestion. We grouped the average taxi-out times (excluding cancellations and first taxis before gate returns) that resulted in a successful runway departure. Table 20a provides average taxi-out times, demonstrating a minimum average of 14.6 minutes at DFW to a maximum of 27.6 minutes at New York JFK. Taxi times at all airports increase through mid-day and afternoon hours. There are significant increases during the 12pm-8pm time window at all three New York airports, where taxi times at JFK routinely exceed 30 minutes. Table 20b captures the variability of these taxi-out times. There is significant afternoon variability in taxi times for Atlanta, Boston, Washington Reagan and Dulles, Chicago, Philadelphia and all three New York airports, while Dallas, Denver, Houston and Los Angeles remain within a narrower window of taxi times. This is illustrative of two factors: the appearance of afternoon weather activity that stalls the departure flows from these airports, as well as normal schedule peaks that are discussed more in Section 4.
Table 20a: Mean Taxi-Out Time by Airport (Minutes per Flight) For Key U.S. Airports, Full Year 2010, by Departure Time Block
DEPS: 0001-0559 0600-0659 0700-0759 0800-0859 0900-0959 1000-1059 1100-1159 1200-1259 1300-1359 1400-1459 1500-1559 1600-1659 1700-1759 1800-1859 1900-1959 2000-2059 2100-2159 2200-2259 2300-2359 24HRS ATL 15.5 15.2 19.0 23.2 23.9 22.5 22.3 17.4 19.0 20.0 21.9 22.3 22.3 21.2 24.5 20.9 21.8 18.7 13.2 20.3 BOS 17.2 20.5 20.0 19.7 19.8 17.9 17.3 18.4 18.8 18.9 19.6 19.6 21.2 22.7 20.3 16.2 15.1 0.0 16.2 17.9 DCA 15.3 15.3 17.0 18.7 18.0 17.4 15.7 16.2 17.0 18.4 17.6 19.2 19.0 18.2 18.9 20.5 17.3 14.7 0.0 16.5 DEN 15.6 15.1 14.6 15.9 13.1 16.5 14.8 13.7 13.0 12.9 14.2 14.0 14.5 15.3 16.1 13.3 15.0 14.1 15.3 14.6 DFW 14.2 15.2 15.1 15.0 14.7 14.8 14.5 16.1 16.0 15.7 15.6 15.4 15.3 15.2 15.0 14.1 13.0 11.8 12.0 14.7 EWR 14.1 19.7 21.8 24.3 26.4 16.3 16.2 16.7 16.7 18.1 20.7 20.1 22.0 27.8 26.9 24.3 20.3 17.6 9.0 20.0 IAD 14.3 16.7 17.5 17.0 14.4 13.3 14.0 17.4 14.6 16.4 17.3 18.4 20.6 17.7 16.9 16.6 15.7 16.9 0.0 15.6 IAH 14.5 13.7 17.7 15.1 16.9 16.3 15.6 14.8 15.8 15.5 16.7 16.1 16.4 16.9 17.6 14.4 15.1 10.5 9.8 15.2 JFK 18.5 21.7 24.7 27.9 23.8 20.7 20.3 20.3 23.9 29.2 34.0 38.7 35.0 37.6 39.9 34.0 30.6 23.2 19.7 27.6 LAX 15.9 15.0 15.1 15.8 14.5 14.8 15.1 15.9 15.2 12.9 12.8 14.0 12.7 12.7 11.3 11.3 14.4 17.6 18.0 14.5 LGA 12.7 18.5 21.7 26.8 30.6 27.8 26.3 24.9 24.2 25.4 29.9 28.6 27.0 27.4 28.7 30.1 24.1 14.8 0.0 23.7 ORD 15.5 14.8 15.3 17.0 16.5 16.5 15.5 16.0 17.0 16.3 17.1 17.9 18.3 19.6 18.6 17.4 16.0 14.7 0.0 15.8 PHL 14.1 17.5 21.4 22.4 22.0 25.7 19.2 14.8 17.3 19.5 20.9 22.8 23.5 32.1 23.2 21.1 23.8 15.9 11.0 20.4
Table 20b: Standard Deviation of Taxi-Out Time by Airport (Minutes per Flight) For Key U.S. Airports, Full Year 2010, by Departure Time Block
TIME 0001-0559 0600-0659 0700-0759 0800-0859 0900-0959 1000-1059 1100-1159 1200-1259 1300-1359 1400-1459 1500-1559 1600-1659 1700-1759 1800-1859 1900-1959 2000-2059 2100-2159 2200-2259 2300-2359 24 HRS ATL 7.7 6.1 8.5 9.6 10.2 9.1 9.2 7.6 9.2 9.9 10.2 11.7 12.4 11.4 10.5 9.4 9.1 7.4 4.1 9.1 BOS 8.3 8.8 10.2 8.7 8.2 7.7 8.0 10.2 9.7 10.5 11.5 10.1 11.7 11.5 10.3 7.6 5.4 0.0 7.0 8.7 DCA 5.8 7.8 8.3 9.5 10.4 10.5 8.8 9.3 11.5 13.1 12.4 13.0 12.7 13.8 12.9 13.4 12.3 8.5 0.0 10.2 DEN 8.7 8.7 8.5 8.5 6.0 7.4 6.9 6.5 5.8 5.8 7.9 9.8 9.8 8.9 10.4 7.8 8.4 5.4 7.5 7.8 DFW 6.8 8.7 7.2 7.0 6.1 7.7 8.3 8.5 8.4 8.0 8.7 8.6 8.0 7.2 6.6 6.4 6.9 4.5 10.5 7.6 EWR 5.5 9.0 10.4 11.4 12.9 8.9 7.5 7.4 8.2 9.2 9.9 10.9 11.9 13.4 13.1 12.3 11.5 9.2 0.0 9.6 IAD 6.4 8.2 9.0 7.7 6.2 7.6 6.8 9.9 10.5 12.4 12.7 12.9 13.8 12.5 11.6 9.4 8.8 8.1 0.0 9.2 IAH 6.8 5.2 7.3 6.3 6.4 7.1 7.4 7.0 7.9 7.7 9.2 7.7 7.6 7.7 8.6 5.8 5.3 3.6 2.9 6.7 JFK 6.7 9.5 10.5 12.4 12.1 9.7 9.7 10.2 12.5 14.5 17.2 19.1 19.0 20.5 21.7 20.0 16.9 12.1 9.4 13.9 LAX 5.6 6.1 6.4 7.0 7.3 6.7 6.6 6.9 6.5 6.1 5.7 5.7 5.7 5.4 5.2 5.9 6.2 6.5 6.9 6.2 LGA 5.7 8.8 11.9 14.0 15.1 14.0 12.9 12.8 12.4 14.4 15.8 16.4 16.4 15.7 17.1 15.2 12.6 7.1 0.0 12.5 ORD 8.1 6.9 7.9 8.5 8.7 9.1 8.0 8.2 8.8 10.0 10.0 10.6 10.9 11.8 11.2 10.8 9.7 7.5 0.0 8.8 PHL 7.7 9.7 12.8 14.1 11.4 12.4 9.9 7.7 9.4 12.3 12.6 15.7 16.4 17.4 17.3 12.6 12.9 8.0 0.0 11.6
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What is the importance of Tables 20a and 20b in airline planning? When determining how large a schedule buffer is appropriate, airlines must assess not only the average taxi time, but the deviation of taxi-out times from the mean. For example, an airline targeting an 80% on-time performance with sole consideration to taxi-out time would estimate a taxi-out time at JFK of 58 minutes (mean plus one standard deviation) and add this to the estimated flight time and arrival taxi-in time in order to calculate the expected block time. As Chart 15 below shows, achieving a 95% confidence interval on flight departures from these airports requires taxi-out time estimates significantly in excess of the mean. Chart 15: 95% Confidence Interval Taxi-Out Time, 24 Hours and Peak Hour 95th Percentile Taxi-Out Time (95% of departures under) by Key U.S. Airport (Full Year 2010)
ALL DAY! 6PM-7PM!
78.7 !
35.3 ! 45.6 !
37.0 ! 45.8 !
38.5 ! 44.0 !
48.7 ! 58.8 !
54.5 !
55.3 !
30.2 ! 33.0 !
28.7 ! 32.2 !
29.8 ! 29.6 !
ATL!
BOS!
DCA!
DEN! DFW! EWR!
IAD!
IAH!
JFK!
LAX!
26.9 ! 23.5 !
LGA!
ORD!
33.3 ! 43.1 !
33.9 ! 42.8 !
39.2 !
PHL!
3.9.3
Taxi-In Variability We now repeat the same calculations for taxi-in times after landing at U.S. airports
during 2010. As expected, taxi-in times on average are significantly lower than taxi-out times. At Atlanta, the average taxi-out time was 20.3 minutes, while the average taxi-in time was 10.8 minutes. The difference is the time spent queuing for departure flow and ATC resources. Taxi-in time is a more direct measurement of the time required to taxi from gate to runway, since it is generally unimpeded (but can be impacted by crossing runway restrictions). Table 21a provides the mean values, while Table 21b provides the standard deviation for each airport. Chart 16 shows the 95% confidence interval for taxi-in times by airport.
43.6 !
66.9 !
Table 21a: Mean Taxi-In Time by Airport (Minutes per Flight) For Key U.S. Airports, Full Year 2010, by Arrival Time Block
Arrival: 0001-0559 0600-0659 0700-0759 0800-0859 0900-0959 1000-1059 1100-1159 1200-1259 1300-1359 1400-1459 1500-1559 1600-1659 1700-1759 1800-1859 1900-1959 2000-2059 2100-2159 2200-2259 2300-2359 24 HRS ATL 7.1 8.1 8.9 12.1 13.5 13.3 9.5 9.0 9.4 10.6 11.6 11.0 10.7 11.3 13.6 13.6 12.6 11.9 7.4 10.8 BOS 5.3 6.8 6.5 8.0 7.1 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.4 6.2 6.4 6.8 7.4 7.2 7.5 6.8 6.2 5.8 5.8 6.6 DCA 4.6 3.5 4.9 5.9 5.0 5.4 4.8 5.1 5.2 5.7 6.2 5.5 5.9 5.7 6.1 5.5 6.0 5.4 4.6 5.3 DEN 6.8 5.9 7.9 7.4 7.9 11.9 8.7 7.1 7.3 7.6 8.1 7.2 8.0 9.0 8.5 8.2 7.7 6.9 7.1 7.8 DFW 4.9 5.7 7.3 9.6 10.1 9.8 9.9 10.5 10.2 9.5 9.2 9.3 10.0 10.3 10.5 9.9 8.3 5.8 5.2 8.7 EWR 7.7 8.0 8.0 9.0 8.1 7.4 7.3 7.6 7.9 8.2 8.9 8.9 10.0 10.1 10.8 10.4 9.2 8.2 7.4 8.6 IAD 5.8 6.5 6.7 6.3 5.8 5.7 6.5 6.4 6.0 6.4 7.4 7.5 7.9 7.1 6.5 6.9 7.2 6.9 6.8 6.7 IAH 6.3 6.2 7.2 7.6 8.4 7.5 7.3 6.9 7.4 7.8 6.9 7.6 8.7 9.4 8.2 8.0 6.3 5.9 6.7 7.4 JFK 8.3 8.6 9.1 9.1 8.5 8.5 7.4 7.5 8.3 9.9 11.8 11.5 17.1 15.0 14.2 12.8 10.5 10.4 10.6 10.5 LAX 8.1 7.7 9.0 8.7 9.2 9.3 9.8 9.7 9.2 7.7 8.1 8.2 7.7 8.3 8.2 8.9 11.2 12.1 11.6 9.1 LGA 4.8 6.2 7.2 9.1 8.5 8.8 8.5 7.3 8.2 7.8 8.1 7.9 8.3 8.7 8.7 9.1 8.6 9.0 7.5 8.0 ORD 6.0 7.0 8.1 11.0 9.7 8.1 7.8 8.2 8.5 8.7 8.5 9.1 9.9 11.6 11.8 12.8 8.3 6.7 6.3 8.8 PHL 5.7 6.4 7.1 6.0 6.1 7.7 6.5 6.6 6.7 7.1 6.5 7.3 7.1 9.5 7.2 7.4 6.5 6.5 6.8 6.9
Table 21b: Average of Taxi-In Time by Airport (Minutes per Flight) For Key U.S. Airports, Full Year 2010, by Arrival Time Block
Arrival: 0001-0559 0600-0659 0700-0759 0800-0859 0900-0959 1000-1059 1100-1159 1200-1259 1300-1359 1400-1459 1500-1559 1600-1659 1700-1759 1800-1859 1900-1959 2000-2059 2100-2159 2200-2259 2300-2359 24 HRS ATL 7.7 6.1 8.5 9.6 10.2 9.1 9.2 7.6 9.2 9.9 10.2 11.7 12.4 11.4 10.5 9.4 9.1 7.4 4.1 9.1 BOS 8.3 8.8 10.2 8.7 8.2 7.7 8.0 10.2 9.7 10.5 11.5 10.1 11.7 11.5 10.3 7.6 5.4 0.0 7.0 8.7 DCA 5.8 7.8 8.3 9.5 10.4 10.5 8.8 9.3 11.5 13.1 12.4 13.0 12.7 13.8 12.9 13.4 12.3 8.5 0.0 10.2 DEN 8.7 8.7 8.5 8.5 6.0 7.4 6.9 6.5 5.8 5.8 7.9 9.8 9.8 8.9 10.4 7.8 8.4 5.4 7.5 7.8 DFW 6.8 8.7 7.2 7.0 6.1 7.7 8.3 8.5 8.4 8.0 8.7 8.6 8.0 7.2 6.6 6.4 6.9 4.5 10.5 7.6 9.6 9.2 EWR 5.5 9.0 10.4 11.4 12.9 8.9 7.5 7.4 8.2 9.2 9.9 10.9 11.9 13.4 13.1 12.3 11.5 9.2 IAD 6.4 8.2 9.0 7.7 6.2 7.6 6.8 9.9 10.5 12.4 12.7 12.9 13.8 12.5 11.6 9.4 8.8 8.1 IAH 6.8 5.2 7.3 6.3 6.4 7.1 7.4 7.0 7.9 7.7 9.2 7.7 7.6 7.7 8.6 5.8 5.3 3.6 2.9 6.7 JFK 6.7 9.5 10.5 12.4 12.1 9.7 9.7 10.2 12.5 14.5 17.2 19.1 19.0 20.5 21.7 20.0 16.9 12.1 9.4 13.9 LAX 5.6 6.1 6.4 7.0 7.3 6.7 6.6 6.9 6.5 6.1 5.7 5.7 5.7 5.4 5.2 5.9 6.2 6.5 6.9 6.2 12.5 8.8 11.6 LGA 5.7 8.8 11.9 14.0 15.1 14.0 12.9 12.8 12.4 14.4 15.8 16.4 16.4 15.7 17.1 15.2 12.6 7.1 ORD 8.1 6.9 7.9 8.5 8.7 9.1 8.0 8.2 8.8 10.0 10.0 10.6 10.9 11.8 11.2 10.8 9.7 7.5 PHL 7.7 9.7 12.8 14.1 11.4 12.4 9.9 7.7 9.4 12.3 12.6 15.7 16.4 17.4 17.3 12.6 12.9 8.0
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Chart 16: 95% Confidence Interval Taxi-In Time, 24 Hours and Peak Hour 95th Percentile Taxi-In Time (95% of arrivals under) by Key U.S. Airport (Full Year 2010)
ALL DAY! 6PM-7PM!
56.0 !
33.1 ! 40.1 !
36.8 !
38.2 !
29.0 ! 34.1 !
25.7 ! 33.3 !
24.0 ! 30.1 !
25.0 ! 32.2 !
35.1 ! ORD! 26.4 !
23.5 ! 26.8 !
27.8 !
20.8 ! 24.7 !
23.9 ! 24.6 !
ATL!
BOS!
DCA!
DEN! DFW! EWR!
IAD!
IAH!
JFK!
LAX!
21.6 ! 19.1 !
LGA!
PHL!
In conclusion, we observe that there is significant variation in taxi-out and taxi-in times across airports, and that taxi times can vary widely by time of day. At some airports, including JFK, LGA, EWR and PHL, taxi times during the afternoon are much higher than during the morning and late evening. At others, including DEN, DFW and IAH, taxi times are more evenly distributed. over time? 3.9.4 Changes in Taxi Times, 1995-2010 In assessing block time padding over time, the mean and standard deviation taxi times change by time of day, are variable across airports and have widely different patterns as discussed in Section 3.9.3. It is also critical to consider how these patterns have changed over time. Using on-time data since 1995, we compared taxi-out and taxi-in times on average across a set of 35 airports for domestic flights. At each airport, we reviewed taxi times by month and by airline. Plotting the annual averages in Chart 17, one can observe a steady increase in taxi-out times. In contrast, taxi-in times increase but less significantly. Table 22 provides the averages for five-year periods from 1995-2009, plus 2010. The significant jump between 1995 and 2010 is observable. Planners must take these differences into account when incorporating expected taxi times into their scheduled en-route times. But how are these taxi times changing
30.1 !
44.3 !
Chart 17: Change in Taxi Times (In and Out) Excluding Cancellations and Diversions
Airport Set: ATL, BNA, BOS, BUF, BWI, CLE, CLT, DAL, DCA, DEN, DFW, DTW, EWR, FLL, HNL, HOU, IAD, IAH, JFK, LAS, LAX, LGA, MCO, MDW, MEM, MSP, OAK, ORD, PHL, SAN, SEA, SFO, SLC, STL, TPA
1995 !
1996 !
1997 !
1998 !
1999 !
2000 !
2001 !
2002 !
2003 !
2004 !
2005 !
2006 !
2007 !
2008 !
2009 !
Taxi In!
Taxi Out!
Table 22: Average Taxi-In Time by Airport (Minutes per Flight) Full Year 2010, by Arrival Time Block
Airport Set: ATL, BNA, BOS, BUF, BWI, CLE, CLT, DAL, DCA, DEN, DFW, DTW, EWR, FLL, HNL, HOU, IAD, IAH, JFK, LAS, LAX, LGA, MCO, MDW, MEM, MSP, OAK, ORD, PHL, SAN, SEA, SFO, SLC, STL, TPA
Averages (Minutes) Taxi In Taxi Out
1995-1999 5.7 15.2
2000-2004 6.3 16.2
2005-2009 6.8 17.0
3.9.5
Comparing Changes in Taxi Time and Flight Time, 1996-2010 In Section 3.9 we have established that: The practice of schedule padding exists and is designed to maximize on-time performance, minimize missed flight connections by passengers, maximize customer satisfaction from on-time arrivals and ensure operational integrity. Schedule padding adds cost by reducing usable aircraft time and increasing labor and maintenance cost. Typical schedule padding varies between 2% and 4% across all airlines and all stage lengths. Some flights are more aggressively padded than others.
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2010 !
20! 18! 16! 14! 12! 10! 8! 6! 4! 2! 0!
Minutes of Taxi Time!
2010 7.0 16.2
The variability of taxi times on both arrival and departure, both in means observed and in the standard deviations therein, are primary drivers of schedule pads. Taxi times largely incorporate the weather- and airspace-related delay factors reported by airlines. To achieve 80-95% confidence intervals in block times, taxi times greater than 30 minutes must be incorporated for key congested airports.
Taxi times (both in and out) have increased since 1995. This is partially due to changes and general utilization of runway and en-route assets, but it is also due to new runway construction and other physical factors.
To complete our analysis of changes in block times since 1996, we compiled scatter charts for all routes in operation consistently between 1996 and 2010, by any reporting airline. For each route, we collected the mean taxi-time (out + in) for all operators between 1996-2000 and 2007-2010, and then compared the two averages. As Chart 18a shows, not all routes had longer taxi-times between 2007-2010 versus 1996-2000, but more than half did. The horizontal axis in Chart 18 represents the change in mean values: 100% means that the averages in 1996-2000 and 2007-2010 are identical. More than 100% means that the mean 2007-2010 exceeds the mean value 1996-2000. One can observe that the shorter the flight distance, the greater the (positive) change in mean taxi times. We attribute this to two factors. First, shorter-haul flights shifted from mainline carriers (plus turboprops, mainly from non-reporting small airlines) to regional flights by reporting express carriers such as Mesa, ExpressJet, ASA, SkyWest and Comair. major airports since 2002. We then run the same analysis for airborne (takeoff to landing) time, using the same data set and inter-year averages. There are several reasons why flight time may change on a given route, given that weather conditions average out over long periods of time. First, airlines have recently employed fuel management strategies, although this impacts only the tail end of 20072010 data. Second, substitution of regional jets for mainline flights results in a marginal flight time increase due to slower cruising speed. Chart 18b captures the overall change in flight time. Second, this new regional jet flying was accompanied by a significant increase in ground delay programs into
15-Year Snapshot Chart 18a: Average Taxi-Time by Route Distance Mean Taxi-Time by Distance, Change 1996-2000 vs. 2007-2010 (>100% = 2007-2010 Longer)
6,000!
5,000! Route Distance (Miles)!
The shorter the flight, the more variable the taxi time has become
4,000!
3,000!
2,000!
1,000!
0! 0%!
100%! Change in Taxi Time (Average 2007-2010 vs. Average 1996-2000)!
200%!
Chart18b: 15 Year Change - Average Flight Time by Route Distance Mean Actual Flight Time by Distance, Change 1996-2000 vs. 2007-2010 (>100% = 2007-2010 Longer)
4,500! 4,000! Flight Distnace (Miles)! 3,500! 3,000! 2,500! 2,000! 1,500! 1,000! 500! 0! 0%! 100%! 200%!
There is little variability in the change in actual flight time by route, compared to taxi time variance
Change in Flight Time (Average 2008-2010 vs. Average 1995-1997)!
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It can be difficult, even with side-by-side comparisons of the changes in flight and taxi averages, to observe precisely where the increase in block time originates. Cross-plotting the data, however, shows that taxi-time changes are clearly driving the overall increase in en-route times, and forcing airlines to increase block times. Chart 18c overlays the data. Chart 18c: Change in Average Flight Time by Route Distance Mean Actual Flight Time by Distance, Change 1996-2000 vs. 2007-2010 (>100% = 2007-2010 Longer)
300%#
250%#
Change,(2008,2010(vs.(1995,1997(
200%#
150%#
Taxi# Flight#
100%#
50%#
0%# 0# 500# 1,000# 1,500# DIstance(of(Route( 2,000# 2,500# 3,000#
3.9.6
Conclusions
The inflation in block time is really because of more variability. Bill Owen, Director of Schedule Planning, Southwest Airlines (WSJ Feb 2010) Some consumer advocates and media have accused airlines of arbitrarily increasing scheduled en-route times purely to game the DOT On-Time Arrivals reporting system. There is no doubt that airlines must carefully watch their on-time performance, particularly since DOT invests heavily in communicating on-time arrival metrics as a key indicator of the national airspace system. However the data suggest that increases in block time are driven by
fundamental changes in airport operations and have been required in order to sustain historical levels of on-time performance. In this section, we have investigated the factors that cause airline delays, isolating which causal factors impact specific airlines and airports. We began with a snapshot of airport utilization and on-time performance, establishing a baseline of delay and cancellation data. We have reviewed scheduled turn time strategies and connected flight delays due to late arriving equipment to those turn strategies. We have established that airlines internalize variability in taxi time and en-route flight time into their block time calculations. From our discussion, we conclude that: 1. Airlines do assess and internalize various factors that cause ordinary flight delays into their scheduled operations. The specific strategies that each airline uses to maximize schedule reliability or aircraft utilization through the day has differential impact on delay impact, both on the primary flight and on following flight operations. We identified the trade-off at Southwest Airlines between fast turns (maximizing utilization) and the unique impact of late-arriving aircraft delays during the afternoon hours. 2. Schedule padding is a fact, and driven by real-world factors that are not arbitrary or immeasurable. Taxi times have increased over the past 15 years, as have en-route times, due to airport utilization, substitution of regional jets for mainline equipment, and fuel savings strategies. The resulting pads of between 2% and 4% systemwide are necessary to maintain on-time performance in the historical range expected by consumers. 3. Simply measuring the number of arrivals and departures at an airport, or relying on the individual scheduling decisions made by a specific carrier, does not explain why some airports generate significant delays while others do not. We have reviewed several generic factors that impact delays including regional airspace congestion caused by competing facilities in a specific corridor or metropolitan region but explaining overscheduling through individual airline decisions is not supported by the data. We therefore turn our attention to the airport, with a review of both FAA Operational Metrics that define the target operational maximum level, and specific schedule designs that either alleviate or aggravate irregular operations recovery.
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Section Four: Airport Capacity
SECTION FOUR: AIRPORT CAPACITY
In prior sections, we have established delay, cancellation and diversion patterns for airlines on a flight-specific basis. We will now incorporate our analysis of airport factors, including general capacity definitions, tendency for capacity reduction through weather events, airline scheduling patterns in aggregate and capacity changes over time. Specifically we will: Review the definition of airport capacity; Discuss the FAA Operational Benchmark metrics; Identify the factors that cause a reduction in available capacity; Identify new runway capacity and other factors that address this reduction; Review the traffic mix at key airports; Review schedule design by airlines at airports, and introduce a Peak Index definition to measure schedule design; and 4.1 Compare Peak Indices and delay factors across the nations largest airports.
Defining Airport Capacity What is airport capacity? The FAA defines capacity as the maximum number of flights
an airport can routinely handle in an hour, for the most commonly used runway configuration in each specific weather condition. 14 A slightly different definition is also used, sometimes concurrently, calling capacity the number of departures and arrivals per hour that an airport can handle safely and routinely.15 The FAAs definition of capacity does not represent an absolute maximum measure of departures and arrivals; rather, it represents a standard measure of full occupancy that could be exceeded occasionally under favorable conditions.16
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FAA Airport Capacity Benchmark Report 2004, US Department of Transportation, FAA/MITRE CAASD. September 2004. 15 Letter, Marion Blakey, Administrator, October 2004. Page 1. 16 FAA Capacity Report.The first benchmarks were developed by the FAA in 2001 and were changed in 2004 to reflect differences in methodology. According to the FAA, these benchmarks are not to be considered absolute in terms of policy. The FAA cites Atlanta as an example: This issue can be demonstrated by examining busy airports such as Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport or Chicago OHare. At Atlanta, scheduled operations may exceed the benchmarks in optimum weather, and frequently do so in bad weather. A simple comparison of schedule to benchmarks might suggest that some action is needed to curtail the schedule. However, air traffic controllers, airlines, and the airport operator have indicated in discussions that they are relatively comfortable with the traffic schedule, and believe that it makes efficient use of the airport. Their judgment is based on long experience and a broad understanding of air transportation. Some of the considerations behind this judgment are applicable to transfer hub airports in general (the concentration of traffic into schedule peaks to allow passengers to make convenient transfers between flights; the ability to catch up with traffic between peaks in the schedule; and the ability of hubbing carriers to cancel and February 16, 2012 Page 65
14
To correct for the variance in weather conditions and specific runway conditions at given airports, the FAA publishes a range of capacity values under a trio of weather conditions: Optimum weather conditions, representing good weather with visual separation by pilots between aircraft in the local airspace; Marginal weather conditions, representing weather better than standard instrument conditions but requiring radar separation of aircraft in the local airspace. Generally marginal conditions refer to ceilings between 1,000 and 3,000 feet above ground level and visibility between 3 and 5 miles; and Instrument flight rules, representing bad weather conditions where radar is required to keep aircraft separated in the airport area. Instrument (IFR) conditions refer to ceilings below 1,000 feet above ground level and visibility less than 3 miles.17 On a quarter-hour basis, the FAA records weather conditions and airport metrics for 77 major and mid-size airports (both commercial and general aviation) located across the United States. From these 77 airports, the FAA developed capacity benchmarks for 35 major hub facilities with a history of high utilization and airport delays. The objective of the capacity projections is to support policy discussions and long-term investment strategies at the airport, assessing when additional physical capacity (for example, runway construction) or airspace capacity (new radar and departure/arrival corridors) are required.
4.2
FAA Airport Capacity Benchmarks The FAAs Airport Capacity Benchmarks (ACB) introduce a baseline measurement of
airport infrastructure capability into discussions of airline schedules, delay expectations and weather impact. For that reason, it is important to review what the FAA has published, how their methodology incorporates certain aspects of airport design and operational constraints, and how additional runway capacity since the ACB were published in 2004 have improved capacity at certain facilities in the United States.
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consolidate some flights during poor weather conditions). Other considerations are applicable to all busy airports, namely the premise that some amount of congestion and delay is not inconsistent with efficient and affordable air transportation. 16 This means that what most use as airport capacity figures are runway capacity numbers. This is not a trivial distinction. 17 For more information, see http://aviationweather.gov/adds/metars/description_ifr.php.
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Capacity definitions are not absolute. At major hub airports such as Chicago OHare and Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, scheduled operations routinely exceed good-weather capacity without any material change in delay or cancellation rates. When weather conditions restrict airport capacity, a larger number of airports will have scheduled flight demand in excess of the projected airport capacity.18 Consumer groups have represented that bad-weather capacity reductions are infrequent and have a minor impact on operations at a given airport. By this line of reasoning, excessive flight delays are caused by airlines that schedule excessive arrivals and departures at a given point in time. Key advocates of this position include Kate Hanni, Founder of FlyersRights.org,19 and Kevin Mitchell, Head of the Business Travel Coalition.20 To determine whether this position is reasonable, one must first assess whether their core assumption is correct that severe weather impact on airports is minor, predictable and can be incorporated into forward schedule plans. Given that we have already reviewed flight-specific delay trends in Section Three, we now focus on airport-level trends and benchmarks. The first step is to review the Operational Benchmarks published by the FAA in October 2004, which incorporated a range of runway capacities based on the three environmental constraints described above: optimal, marginal and instrument (IFR) weather. The full Benchmark list is below in Table 23. Optimal, Marginal and IFR represent the range of airport capacity available during that weather condition, based on runway configuration and other factors. The column % of Time represents the frequency of that weather condition at the given airport during the period from January 2000 through July 2002, excluding the airspace closure period after September 11, 2001.
18 FAA Operational 2004.The benchmarks are the sum of takeoffs and landings per hour that are possible under the given conditions, if the demand is present. The benchmark capacity represents balanced operations, with equal number of arrivals and departures. However, if air traffic control (ATC) at the airport frequently reports an unbalanced rate, the benchmark value will reflect this. For example, the airport might be able to handle 40 arrivals per hour but as many as 60 departures per hour. Clearly, the airport cannot operate more departures than arrivals for an extended period: such rates describe the capability of the airport to accommodate operations, not necessarily actual hourly traffic. These benchmarks are based on routine operations, and therefore they might be exceeded under favorable conditions. Conversely, lower rates would be expected under adverse conditions, such as lower capacity runway configuration or very low ceiling and visibility, of if demand is significantly less than capacity. 19 Kate Hanni, FlyersRights.org, http://crankyflier.com/2010/03/12/kate-hanni-and-i-talk-about-delays-we-disagreepart-two/. 20 Kevin Mitchell, BTC Editorial, http://meetingsnet.com/corporatemeetingsincentives/news/0315-tarmac-delay-rule/.
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Table 23: FAA Capacity Benchmark Metrics, 2004, by Weather Condition Prevalence
(a) Indicates estimated weather conditions Airport ATL BOS BWI CLE CLT CVG DCA DEN DFW DTW EWR FLL HNL (a) IAD IAH JFK LAS LAX (a) LGA MCO MDW MEM MIA MSP ORD PDX PHL PHX PIT SAN SEA SFO SLC STL TPA Optimal 180 to 188 123 to 131 106 to 120 80 to 80 130 to 131 120 to 125 72 to 87 210 to 219 270 to 279 184 to 189 84 to 92 60 to 62 110 to 120 135 to 135 120 to 143 75 to 87 102 to 113 137 to 148 78 to 85 144 to 164 64 to 65 148 to 181 116 to 121 114 to 120 190 to 200 116 to 120 104 to 116 128 to 150 152 to 160 56 to 58 80 to 84 105 to 110 130 to 131 104 to 113 102 to 105 % of Time 76% 82% 85% 78% 82% 55% 86% 92% 81% 74% 82% 82% 99% 80% 71% 86% 98% 76% 81% 91% 84% 76% 95% 64% 84% 75% 86% 99% 86% 64% 64% 74% 85% 76% 93% Marginal 172 to 174 112 to 117 80 to 93 72 to 77 125 to 131 120 to 124 60 to 84 186 to 202 231 to 252 168 to 173 80 to 81 60 to 61 60 to 85 114 to 120 120 to 141 75 to 87 77 to 82 126 to 132 74 to 84 132 to 144 64 to 65 140 to 167 104 to 118 112 to 115 190 to 200 79 to 80 96 to 102 108 to 118 143 to 150 56 to 58 74 to 76 81 to 93 110 to 120 91 to 96 90 to 95 % of Time 14% 7% 6% 12% 9% 35% 8% 2% 13% 16% 9% 16% 1% 11% 22% 5% 2% 16% 10% 4% 7% 17% 3% 28% 7% 21% 6% 1% 5% 32% 29% 20% 9% 17% 3% IFR 158 to 162 90 to 93 60 to 71 64 to 64 102 to 110 102 to 120 48 to 70 159 to 162 186 to 193 136 to 145 61 to 66 52 to 56 58 to 60 105 to 113 108 to 112 64 to 67 70 to 70 117 to 124 69 to 74 104 to 117 61 to 44 120 to 132 92 to 96 112 to 114 136 to 144 77 to 80 96 to 96 108 to 118 119 to 150 48 to 50 57 to 60 68 to 72 110 to 113 64 to 70 74 to 75 % of Time 10% 11% 9% 10% 9% 10% 6% 6% 6% 10% 9% 2% 0% 9% 7% 9% 0% 6% 9% 5% 9% 7% 2% 8% 9% 4% 8% 0% 9% 5% 7% 6% 7% 7% 4%
Four observations from Table 23 are relevant for discussions of advance planning. First, the frequency of high-impact weather events (IFR) ranges between less than 1% of observed time periods at airports such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Honolulu to more than 10% of the observed time periods at Atlanta, Boston, Cincinnati, and Detroit. As importantly, the occurrence of marginal weather conditions that also require radar separation during initial approach phases and during departures varies widely from under 5% in many Western airports to more than 25% at several facilities.
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Second, the loss of capacity at a given airport during inclement weather conditions is particularly relevant for advance schedule planning decisions. Table 24 below represents the overall capacity drop between the maximum throughput during optimal weather conditions and the minimum throughput during IFR conditions. Table 24: Capacity Loss During Inclement (IFR) Weather Conditions Relative to Optimal Weather Conditions (Min vs. Max)
Source: FAA Operational Benchmarks (2004) Airport Code HNL BWI DCA STL SFO LAS MCO PDX MEM EWR DFW SEA ORD BOS TPA DTW PHX DEN Capacity Loss During IFR Conditions 51.7% 50.0% 44.8% 43.4% 38.2% 38.1% 36.6% 35.8% 33.7% 33.7% 33.3% 32.1% 32.0% 31.3% 29.5% 28.0% 28.0% 27.4% Airport Code JFK PIT IAH MIA IAD CLT LAX CLE LGA CVG PHL SAN FLL SLC ATL MSP MDW Capacity Loss During IFR Conditions 26.4% 25.6% 24.5% 24.0% 22.2% 22.1% 20.9% 20.0% 18.8% 18.4% 17.2% 17.2% 16.1% 16.0% 16.0% 6.7% 6.2%
As Table 24 shows, the capacity loss during bad weather varies widely across U.S. airports, even within geographically similar areas. Airports with intersecting runways (or runways too close to permit simultaneous instrument arrival patterns) are particularly susceptible to capacity loss during bad weather. Eleven of the top 35 airport facilities lose a third or more of available capacity during inclement weather. Not only is the total occurrence of inclement weather highly variable across the U.S. airspace system, but also the frequency with which inclement weather occurs also varies. This is particularly true during the summer season in the Eastern half of the U.S., where thunderstorm activity can erupt without significant advance warning.
Third, when the incidence of bad weather is plotted alongside the maximum loss in departure and arrival capacity, the operational advantages of certain airports becomes clear. Chart 19: Airport Capacity Loss vs. Occurrence of Inclement Weather Conditions Source: FAA Operational Benchmark Report, 2004; Weather Impact 2009
-16%
-7%
-6%
-17%
-22% -20% -19% -18%
-21% -20%
-17%
-16% -16% -27% -37% -30% -24% -38% -28% -52% -26%
-32% -34%
-43%
-36% -38%
-33% -31% -34%
% CAP LOSS
In Chart 19 above, the red columns represent the frequency with which IFR weather conditions (defined here as ceilings less than 1,000 feet and/or visibility less than 3 miles). Capacity loss represents the maximum decrease in the airport departure and arrival rates per hour between Optimal and IFR conditions. Airports including Seattle, Memphis, St. Louis, Washington Dulles, Detroit, Portland, San Francisco, and Charlotte have a 20% or greater incidence of inclement weather and a 20% loss in airport capacity during these conditions. Airports including Denver, Orlando, Tampa, Miami, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Honolulu have inclement weather less than 10% of the time, but lose between 24% and 52% of available capacity during such weather conditions.
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-45% -50% % WEATHER
-26% -32%
-27% -28%
30% 26% 24% 24% 24% 22% 20% 20% 20% 20% 19% 18% 18% 18% 18% 18% 17% 16% 16% 15% 14% 13% 13% 13% 13% 11% 10% 8% 7% 5% 4% 2% 1% 0% 0%
SEA MEM STL ATL MSP IAD DTW PDX SFO CLT IAH LGA CVG DFW BOS EWR LAX CLE DCA BWI PHL JFK ORD MDW SAN PIT SLC FLL DEN MCO TPA MIA LAS PHX HNL
The majority of airports incur inclement weather between 10% and 20% of the time. The average capacity loss is 27%. Fourth, capacity improvements continue at key U.S. airports, particularly the construction
of new parallel runways that often allow additional concurrent approaches during inclement weather conditions. New parallel runways result in improvements in arrival capacity, and therefore reduce the downside risk during weather events. Each of the six airports below in Table 25 received a new parallel runway between 2004 and 2009. Five of the six showed a significant improvement in capacity; the new runway at Miami did not permit an increase in arrival rates due to its close proximity to other runways. Table 25: Improvements in Capacity Losses during Inclement Weather Resulting from New Runway Construction, 2004-2009
Airport Code DEN STL MCO SEA ATL MIA Full Name of Airport Denver International St. Louis Lambert Field Orlando International Seattle-Tacoma International Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Miami International 2009 Capacity Loss 14.7% 24.5% 24.4% 29.4% 14.8% 23.5% 2004 Capacity Loss Improvement 2004-2009 46.5% 43.5% 33.2% 8.5% 7.5% 2.0%
27.4% 43.4% 36.6% 32.1% 16.0% 24.0%
To summarize: 1. The FAA Benchmarks provide only a general index of departure and arrival capacity under three basic weather categories, but do not combine frequency of weather events or the severity of the events into an aggregate measurement of capacity that would align with long-term airline schedules that span all operating conditions. In other words, comparing flight schedules at a given airport where airlines set demand months in advance, and plan a consistent schedule across all weather conditions against the FAA benchmark rates has limited utility. 2. Consumer advocates who point to airlines planning flights in excess of bad weather capacity are not incorporating critical weather probability and impact severity into their analysis. Our data disproves statements made often by FlyersRights.org and Business Travel Coalition. Schedule planning must, by definition, incorporate the unique weather factors at each facility an airline operates to and from.
3. The FAA Benchmarks under a single weather condition can vary widely based on different runway configurations. Wind conditions on an hourly basis create significant variability in airport capacity. At Washington Reagan, for example, wind direction and speed even under optimal weather conditions can reduce available capacity by 17%. The inherent variability of these weather factors mean statistical averages of overall weather patterns is required. 4. New runway construction can alleviate arrival bottlenecks during inclement weather, but they are not a panacea in curing departure delays. To translate these baseline benchmarks into metrics that compare, apples-to-apples, against planned schedules, we must incorporate other factors, including overall capacity planned at the given airport and human factors. These are discussed in the next section. 4.3 Augmenting and Enhancing Capacity Metrics The previous discussion showed that the FAAs metrics are based on simple groupings of airport capacity during three weather categories. Capacity benchmarks facilitate inter-airport comparisons and the benefits of new runway construction, but they do not incorporate constraints such as aircraft movement (taxiway and ramp) capacity, local airspace congestion, and human factors. In essence, the FAA Benchmarks provide the first step in assessing how operating airlines schedule a given facility. To assess whether airlines intentionally overschedule airports particularly relative to the benchmarks and standards defined by the FAA as reviewed above a number of additional factors must be incorporated. We focus our analysis on six factors that provide additional information about a given airports sustainable capacity and demand profile. 1. Gate, ramp and airport movement area available, including taxiway space available and the airport layout. 2. Terminal airspace capacity, particularly availability of departure and arrival corridors during inclement weather conditions. 3. Aircraft type mix at the airport, impacting en-route miles in trail restrictions and congestion.
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4. Human factors, including the ability for air traffic control and airport management to respond to and clear bottlenecks. 5. The mix of general aviation, military and emergency flight operations at a given airport. 6. The local-market strength of the airport (revenue base), importance of connecting traffic and the degree to which airlines are inflexible about specific arrival and departure windows. These six factors enhance runway capacity benchmarks to provide meaningful information about how many flights are likely to be scheduled and whether the airport will be able to absorb delays. Each factor is discussed below. 4.3.1 Gate, Ramp and Airport Surface Movement Area
The physical, non-runway resources of a given airport are relevant in assessing whether airlines can schedule arrivals and departures at or near the given FAA Benchmark rate. Available gate and terminal facilities drive the number of concurrent departures and volumes of passengers that can be handled. But non-terminal factors, including the volume of ramp space available to push-back aircraft, or hold them immediately prior to gate arrival or after gate departure, is also a relevant factor in projecting congestion at the airport, and the amount of schedule buffer required. 4.3.2 Regional Airspace Capacity
Even with ample runway and ramp capacity available, if the local airspace around an airport is unable to process the volume of arrivals and departures demanded, then congestion, delays and potentially cancellations will result. This is particularly important in regional airspace where multiple, high-demand airports are co-located, such as the metropolitan areas of Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington and New York. In these regions, runway configurations and weather conditions can concentrate arrival and departure corridors from multiple airports. Airlines not only must estimate expected demand from competitors at their origin, but also consider potentially conflicting demand from other regional airports. 4.3.3 Aircraft Type Mix
The mix of aircraft departing a given airport can impact the pace at which aircraft depart. The FAA Capacity Benchmarks are based on standardized aircraft types, but in reality a mix of
slow turboprop and piston aircraft, heavy widebody aircraft, and mid-size narrowbody aircraft can create wide variance in the spacing required between arrivals and departures. This is particularly relevant at airports with high numbers of international, wide-body flight departures during evening hours. Spacing requirements for these flights slow the pace of departures, causing airports to operate below their published departure rates. 4.3.4 Human Factors
While every airport in the United States operates to the same regulatory standards for traffic separation, the process of executing air traffic management is still a human process that is, a human controller is ultimately responsible for setting the pace of arrivals and departures at a facility. The degree to which controller procedures differ across airlines therefore has a measurable impact on that airports arrival and departure performance. As the FAA states in its Benchmark report, Human factors play a critical role in the benchmark rates reported by the air traffic facility. Benchmarks are strongly affected by how busy the airport is and how aggressively the management team sets target rates. For example, controllers may not be willing to operate multiple arrival and departure runways concurrently. Or controllers may be well trained in dealing with short-term disruptions such as brief thunderstorms and are comfortable with ad-hoc re-routing and re-sequencing. 4.3.5 Traffic Mix
Aircraft type mix, as noted above, is an important determinant of departure and arrival flow sequencing and separation. However, the very mix of traffic at an airport scheduled passenger, unscheduled charter, military, emergency, and general aviation in nature determines the resources available to airline schedulers. As Table 26 below illustrates, in 2010 the daytime mix of commercial and non-commercial traffic at major U.S. airports varied significantly, from a high of 99% at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson to a low of 73.8% at Memphis. Why does this concern airline planners? While general levels of non-scheduled and noncommercial traffic can be estimated in advance, the specific demand by non-scheduled entities for runway, ramp and airport departure/arrival capacity by hour and month cannot be estimated in non-slot-controlled airports.
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Table 26: Commercial Traffic Mix at Major U.S. Airports Between 7am and 10pm during 2010
Airports ATL ORD DFW DEN IAH CLT LAX DTW MSP PHL PHX BOS EWR JFK LAS % Commercial 99.0% 98.5% 97.7% 98.1% 95.5% 95.4% 95.6% 97.9% 95.0% 95.2% 89.9% 93.8% 96.3% 97.2% 89.2% Airports LGA SFO IAD MIA SLC SEA MCO BWI DCA MEM MDW FLL PDX CLE SAN % Commercial 98.3% 95.8% 87.2% 91.4% 88.5% 96.5% 94.3% 90.8% 98.5% 73.8% 84.5% 85.7% 75.9% 93.8% 90.2%
4.3.6
Local Market Dynamics
The dominant use of an airport facility, for passengers originating or terminating their journeys at that airport, or connecting at the facility to and from other cities, impacts how airlines schedule their flights and therefore to what extent any given airline can expect competitors to concentrate arrivals and departures within specific time windows. Airports with a dominant hub carrier may have a baseline of operations spread throughout the day, while airports with fragmented competition or slot-controlled runway use may necessarily have departures spread throughout the day. Airlines schedule according to methodologies that do incorporate basic runway design and adverse weather patterns. But airlines do require information about overall infrastructure, surrounding airspace, demand profiles and non-scheduled operations to result in useful available capacity to that given carriers flight demand. Airline scheduling decisions are highly focused investment decisions in a given airport facility. Airlines invest capacity in a given airport with an associated risk estimate that the airport capacity will permit operations at the demanded level.
4.4
Introducing the Peak Index Metric We recognize that measuring and comparing airline schedules across different airports,
relative to each other and relative to overall capacity, is challenging.
A single theoretical
construct must be developed to compare schedule levels across airports, since airport-specific factors other than raw runway capacity are not included in the FAAs ACB construct. For interairport comparisons, FAA capacity metrics are useful and appropriate. For measuring airline schedules at a given field, however, they are not. A more granular approach is needed. One of the main methodological issues to be dealt with in this analysis is the matter of scale. Data can be used in many different metrics including annual, monthly, daily, one hour and fifteen minute increments. To create a consistent metric for assessing the variation of schedules and airport capacity through a given time period daily, monthly or annually we will utilize the coefficient of variation as our measurement. It is called The Peak Index. Our definition of Peak Index is simply the ratio of the standard deviation to the mean. We chose the coefficient of variation because it is well developed in statistical literature and a straightforward metric to calculate on a highly automated basis across large-scale data sets. !"#$$%&%#'( !!" !!"#$"%$&' = ! !"#$!"#! !!"#$%&$'( !"#$
In this case, the Coefficient of Variation measures the mean level of scheduled operation levels during a given time period and the standard deviation of those scheduled operations levels around the mean. A highly peaked schedule would have a high standard deviation and A flat schedule would have a low coefficient of therefore a high coefficient of variation.
variation. The coefficient of variation will always be a positive numeric value between 0 and 1. As a normalized measure of dispersion, the coefficient of variation is a unitized metric and can be used to compare dispersion over different samples. Using standard deviation alone is insufficient, as it is a unique measurement for each sample. Scaling of data and the relative size of the sample set taken to assess flight schedules is a critical factor. To determine the best sample methodology for airport schedules, we considered groupings by year, month, day, hour, and quarter-hour. We also examined airportwide data sets and specific airline data for schedules and capacity.
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Simply put, when aggregating data over long periods of time, the critical variances around the mean are lost. These are important for testing the hypotheses of peaking and the change over time of scheduling patterns. Conducting a granular analysis based on averages in a given month samples the boundary conditions that are important in capacity discussions. Our analysis: 1. Collects arrival and departure data based on published OAG schedules, hour by hour at key U.S. airports, and on total flight operations including general aviation, cargo, charter and military flights. For the OAG schedules, we include all scheduled flights, including international operations and flights by non-reporting scheduled carriers. We average scheduled demand for specific days of the week by month and year to create an aggregate data pool that still provides boundary conditions and breaks in patterns. 2. Measures the mean level of scheduled operations during the sample period, based on operations per hour, and measures the standard deviation of schedule peaks and valleys versus the mean. 3. Compares the mean and variance data against the FAA Operational Benchmarks and actual arrival and departure capacity (ADR + AAR) reported by the airport facility for that hour. 4.5 Peak Index: Application to Hub Airports We now apply our definition of Peak Index using the Coefficient of Variation of flight schedule operation demand by hour versus the mean demand to assess the change in hub scheduling over the past six years. To start the discussion, we must transition from the DOT Part 234 ASQP data sets we used in Section 3 to the full set of international, reporting domestic and non-reporting domestic flights captured in the OAG and FAA ASPM data sets. Table 27 below shows the total count of domestic and international flight operations by year between 2000 and 2010. Flight operations peaked in 2007, driven by increases of both domestic and international scheduled flights.
Table 27: Domestic and International Flight Operations, 2000-2010 Source: DOT T-100 Flight Segment Information
Year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Domestic 7,905,617 7,626,312 8,089,140 9,458,818 9,968,049 10,038,373 9,712,750 9,839,578 9,376,251 8,753,567 8,701,135 International 1,036,757 1,038,867 1,024,056 1,129,990 1,220,677 1,267,681 1,299,209 1,335,593 1,336,938 1,259,829 1,297,623 Total 8,942,374 8,665,179 9,113,196 10,588,808 11,188,726 11,306,054 11,011,959 11,175,171 10,713,189 10,013,396 9,998,758
Table 27 demonstrates that flight operations have declined since the operational peak in 2007. This has resulted from capacity decreases driven by both economic slowdowns, by airline mergers, by airline bankruptcies without corresponding startup ventures, and by ruthless capacity control by U.S. carriers, particularly in the domestic market. Given this backdrop of flight operations peaking in 2007 and then declining through 2010, we now apply our Peak Index construct to key nationwide airports. Table 28 shows that key airports nationwide have been effectively depeaked, particularly since the traffic decline started in 2007. In other words, capacity reductions have occurred by thinning down the peaks of hub operations while sometimes boosting off-peak departures. Table 28 shows two extremes. The airport with the lowest number of peaks in 2010 is LaGuardia, where artificial demand-management programs in the form of slot controls and limitations on where aircraft can fly restrict the ability for airlines to control their schedules. On the other extreme, Memphis is the most peaked hub. Memphis remains a second-tier hub in the combined Delta/Northwest network, focusing on connecting traffic where traffic is aggregated in specific time windows through the day. The contrast between the two airports is notable. Memphis operates a traditional hub-and-spoke design with arriving and departing banks. LaGuardia has a constant rate of operations dictated by slot controls. LaGuardias total operations throughout the day are close to the maximum capacity, whereas those at Memphis are a fraction of even the constrained bad-weather capacity at the airport. Table 28 also demonstrates that depeaking strategies began in 2005 and were consistently applied through the following six-year period. In some airports, peaking increased, but this can
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be tied in most cases to the introduction of new international banks, where peaked departures are required based on European slot controls and overnight flight schedules. Table 28: Peak Index Values By Year, Showing Most Peaked Airports
Includes All Traffic Types (Scheduled + Charter + Military + Cargo + General Aviation)
Airport MDW IAD PHL MCO SAN SLC BWI TPA ATL BOS LGA MEM SEA LAX CLE PDX DFW CLT MSP IAH PIT DEN JFK STL FLL HNL MIA LAS ORD SFO PHX DTW EWR 2005 15.80% 34.10% 10.90% 21.60% 12.30% 26.90% 17.60% 23.40% 21.70% 18.60% 10.80% 68.10% 12.80% 14.30% 36.40% 16.70% 23.20% 17.50% 27.50% 28.60% 30.00% 31.60% 26.80% 30.60% 28.60% 25.30% 27.00% 22.00% 18.60% 22.70% 27.10% 29.90% 22.10% 2006 21.00% 40.30% 13.80% 27.50% 13.50% 31.20% 16.70% 24.80% 25.80% 21.60% 9.60% 71.20% 12.80% 12.60% 36.30% 18.40% 21.60% 18.80% 25.50% 25.00% 27.10% 30.20% 27.80% 24.20% 31.50% 18.60% 26.70% 20.00% 16.70% 19.00% 23.10% 26.40% 20.10% 2007 18.90% 41.10% 13.30% 26.00% 14.20% 29.30% 15.20% 25.00% 25.60% 20.50% 9.10% 71.50% 15.40% 13.00% 34.60% 17.10% 20.70% 17.30% 25.70% 23.00% 26.80% 29.50% 25.50% 23.20% 27.50% 19.80% 26.50% 18.60% 16.40% 18.40% 23.80% 24.60% 18.50% 2008 16.10% 43.80% 14.80% 24.20% 14.70% 30.30% 14.30% 23.50% 23.70% 18.90% 9.10% 74.10% 16.20% 12.20% 36.90% 17.00% 22.60% 17.80% 24.60% 22.40% 26.70% 27.70% 19.10% 21.40% 26.90% 19.30% 24.50% 17.60% 16.50% 19.60% 19.90% 25.40% 15.90% 2009 27.20% 45.70% 14.80% 26.80% 16.50% 30.50% 16.60% 32.30% 23.40% 20.90% 11.20% 73.70% 11.40% 13.90% 37.10% 19.40% 23.10% 17.70% 25.90% 27.70% 29.70% 29.60% 20.60% 20.90% 27.10% 19.10% 24.50% 21.80% 16.80% 21.80% 24.90% 21.40% 13.50% 2010 22.20% 46.60% 13.60% 26.30% 14.80% 32.10% 20.50% 27.30% 24.90% 21.20% 11.80% 73.70% 13.80% 14.80% 36.50% 16.30% 22.80% 16.80% 26.40% 26.90% 27.60% 28.00% 23.50% 26.50% 24.80% 21.20% 22.60% 18.60% 15.40% 18.70% 21.80% 21.40% 13.90% Change 40% 37% 25% 22% 20% 19% 17% 17% 15% 14% 9% 8% 7% 4% 0% -2% -2% -4% -4% -6% -8% -11% -12% -14% -14% -16% -16% -16% -17% -17% -19% -29% -37%
4.6
Peak Indices and Capacity We compare the Peak Index for each airport against the total operational capacity of the
field. We find that the more pronounced the peaks in schedule, the less likely the airport is seen as operating to maximum capacity. Conversely, the less peaked the total airport operations are, the more likely it is to be close to maximum capacity. The correlation coefficient between Utilization and Peak Index is -0.59, suggesting a consistent trend. Table 29: Peak Index and Utilization by Airport (June 2009) Measured by OAG Scheduled Commercial Traffic and by All Traffic Types Source: FAA ASPM and ETMS, June 2009 Snapshot
OAG Scheduled Traffic Only Airport New York LGA Newark Liberty EWR New York JFK Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson ATL Philadelphia PHL Chicago OHare ORD Boston Logan BOS San Francisco SFO Denver DEN Charlotte CLT Houston Bush IAH Los Angeles LAX Dallas/Ft. Worth DFW Baltimore-Washington BWI Detroit Metro DTW Minneapolis/St. Paul MSP Fort Lauderdale FLL Miami MIA Washington Dulles IAD Utilization Peak Index All Traffic Types Utilization 84% 81% 80% 79% 75% 72% 64% 63% 59% 58% 55% 55% 53% 51% 50% 50% 49% 36% 35% Peak Index 12% 14% 24% 25% 14% 15% 21% 19% 28% 17% 27% 15% 23% 21% 21% 26% 25% 23% 47%
84% 81% 80% 79% 75% 72% 69% 64% 63% 59% 58% 55% 55% 53% 51% 50% 50% 49% 36%
11% 14% 15% 22% 17% 14% 13% 14% 18% 22% 24% 28% 13% 19% 16% 32% 30% 23% 20%
Another comparison of airport utilization measures schedule levels against both the FAA Operational Benchmark and against the actual Arrival and Departure Rates (ADR+AAR) reported by the airports during specific quarter-hour time periods. Table 30 presents an operational snapshot of actual demand versus ADR/AAR and the ACB metrics for June 2009, incorporating both domestic and international flight operations. It shows that for many key hubs, airline schedules are aligned with the actual reported capacity metrics, and not the FAAs ACB.
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Table 30: Actual Schedule Demand versus Actual Capacity (ADR+AAR) and published FAA Operational Benchmark (ACB) Source: FAA ASPM, OAG, ACB 2004-2009
JUNE 2009 ATL BOS BWI CLT DEN DFW DTW EWR FLL IAD IAH JFK LAX LGA MIA MSP ORD PHL SFO ACTUAL ADR+AAR 79% 64% 51% 58% 59% 53% 50% 81% 49% 35% 55% 80% 55% 84% 36% 50% 72% 75% 63% FAA BENCHMARK 89% 40% 34% 59% 50% 39% 39% 75% 52% 35% 71% 80% 57% 83% 40% 59% 73% 67% 53%
4.7
Peak Indices and Delays In this section, we examine the correlation between schedules and delays. First, we
compare the correlation between the Peak Index values for each year and the on-time performance reported through Part 234 ASQP data. In particular, we focused our attention on 10 airports with chronic delay histories: SFO, EWR, LGA, JFK, BOS, MIA, PHL, DTW, ORD, and ATL. We compared the correlation coefficients between Peak Index values and On-Time Performance for these airports. In two of the years (2008 and 2009) there were negative signs on the resulting coefficients. This implies a counterintuitive result: as the Peak Index goes up, observed delays go down. These results show that in general, the Peak Index of a given flight schedule is poorly correlated with the resulting flight delays. The assertion that airline hub peaks cause flight delays (or that de-peaking hubs alleviates delays) is not supported by operational data. In addition, because we observe a wide variance in correlation coefficients across our six-year period of analysis, delay conditions are neither sustained nor systemic over time.
There has been significant de-peaking over the last six years, as we showed in Table 28. The first airline to significantly de-peak was American Airlines during the late 1990s at both Chicago OHare and Dallas/Fort Worth airports. Depeaking does not address flight delays alone. Depeaking is about efficient capacity utilization and resource management all of which can reduce fares for passengers and improve competition. Depeaking has a profound benefit for irregular operations, as we suggest in Section Three. Having a uniform distribution of schedules (or, put differently, a very low Peak Index) is a causative factor in flight delays. This is because if delays begin in the morning at an airport with high capacity utilization and low Peak Index, they back up through the remaining hours of the day because there is no trough to clear delayed aircraft while still accommodating that hours arrivals and departures. LaGuardia is the classic case study for this; when delays impact the airport in the morning, flight cancellations are the only proven method for restoring the schedule without delays rolling through the day, both at LaGuardia and throughout the national system.
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4.8
Airport-Specific Analysis In the following section, we present specific airport detail, using a schedule and
performance snapshot for June 2009.
We selected June 2009 because it represents a peak
summer month after the significant schedule retractions of 2007-2008. For each airport, we identify the primary operators, define the Peak Index and capacity utilization, show on-time departure and arrival performance (measured from the gate through Part 234 ASQP data), and comment on the airports performance relative to its peers. The graphs at left show scheduled and actual demand versus the published airport capacity for each airport. For the Peak Index, the higher the number, the more peaked the airport has become.
ATLANTA HARTSFIELD-JACKSON
250! 200! 150! 100! 50! 0!
6! 7! 8! 9! 10! 11! 12! 13! 14! 15! 16! 17! 18! 19! 20! 21!
JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Primary hub for Delta, AirTran Peaked schedule model Scheduled Peak Index 22% (/) Morning peak crosses maximum capacity during 8am departure hour Operated at 79% daily capacity On-time performance 76% departures, 76% arrivals Dominant carrier Delta Air Lines (34% of capacity mainline + about 41% of capacity regionals) Above-average schedule performance versus peer group
avg_ops! avg_capacity!
avg_scheduled!
BOSTON LOGAN INTERNATIONAL

100! 80! 60! 40! 20! 0!
6! 7! 8! 9! 10! 11! 12! 13! 14! 15! 16! 17! 18! 19! 20! 21!
JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE No dominant carrier (US 17%, B6 17%, AA 11%, DL 11%) Flat peak structure Scheduled Peak Index 13.9% (/) Afternoon schedule peak plus international departures Operated at 64% daily capacity On-time performance 72.8% departures, 61.1% arrivals Significant weather impact during month with below-average airport performance relative to peers, particularly for regional carriers
avg_scheduled!
BALTIMORE WASHINGTON INTL

100! 80! 60! 40!
JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Moderate schedule model; Scheduled Peak Index15.7% (/) Flat schedule dominated by low-fare Southwest (52% of arrivals) and AirTran (18% of arrivals) Operated at 51% daily capacity On-time performance 74.5% departures, 76.9% arrivals Low-fare airlines operate rolling structure through the day, few peaks or valleys
20! 0! 6! 7! 8! 9! 10!11!12!13!14!15!16!17!18!19!20!21! avg_ops! avg_capacity! avg_scheduled!
CHARLOTTE DOUGLAS INTL

160! 140! 120! 100! 80! 60! 40! 20! 0! 6! 7! 8! 9! 10!11!12!13!14!15!16!17!18!19!20!21! avg_ops! avg_capacity! avg_scheduled!
JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Primary hub for US Airways Scheduled Peak Index 24.7% (/) Flat schedule dominated by US Airways (63% mainline, 17% regional = 80% of total capacity) Operated at 58.3% daily capacity On-time performance 80.4% departures, 79.8% arrivals Concentration by a single carrier allows coordination of departure and arrival slots to optimize performance. Available runway capacity.
WASHINGTON REAGAN NATIONAL

80! 60! 40! 20! 0! 6! 7! 8! 9! 10!11!12!13!14!15!16!17!18!19!20!21! avg_ops! avg_capacity! avg_scheduled!
JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Hub for US Airways and focus city for other carriers. Scheduled Peak Index 13.2% (/) Dominant carriers US (27%), AA/MQ (26%), and other carriers. Operated at 68.6% daily capacity On-time performance 78.4% departures, 73.1% arrivals Slot-controlled, where departures and arrivals metered by FAA, DOT
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DENVER INTERNATIONAL
250! 200! 150! 100! 50! 0! 6! 7! 8! 9! 10!11!12!13!14!15!16!17!18!19!20!21! avg_ops! avg_capacity! avg_scheduled!
JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Primary hub for United and Frontier; focus city for Southwest AM and PM banks Scheduled Peak Index 22.2% (/) Dominant carriers UA (26% mainline plus 22% regional), WN (17%) and F9 (18%). Operated at 58.8% daily capacity On-time performance 68.9% departures, 69.7% arrivals Ample runway and ramp capacity
DALLAS/FT. WORTH INTERNATIONAL

JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Primary hub for American and Eagle Unpeaked relative to other major hubs; AA rolling hub. Scheduled Peak Index 19.4% (/) Dominant carrier AA/MQ (88%) Operates at 53% daily capacity On-time performance 68.6% departures, 75.1% arrivals Ample runway and ramp capacity
DETROIT METROPOLITAN
JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Primary hub for Delta/Northwest Very strong peak structure Scheduled Peak Index 32.4% (/) Dominant carriers DL/NW and regionals (79%) Operated at 50.4% daily capacity On-time performance 78.4% departures, 78.8% arrivals Six connecting banks at two hour intervals at hub focused on transit passengers
NEWARK LIBERTY INTL (EWR)

100! 80! 60! 40! 20! 0! 6! 7! 8! 9! 10!11!12!13!14!15!16!17!18!19!20!21!
JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Primary hub for Continental Consistent arrival and departure flow through day with minimal peaks. Scheduled Peak Index 13.9% (/) Dominant carriers CO/XE (74%) Operated at 80.6% daily capacity On-time performance 71.6% departures, 64.3% arrivals Highly susceptible to airspace congestion in New York, resulting in frequent ground delay programs into the airport
avg_scheduled!
FT. LAUDERDALE INTERNATIONAL (FLL)

70! 60! 50! 40! 30! 20! 10! 0! 6! 7! 8! 9! 10!11!12!13!14!15!16!17!18!19!20!21! avg_ops! avg_capacity! avg_scheduled!
JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Low-cost carrier focus city Flights timed for leisure passengers Scheduled Peak Index 23.4% (/) Dominant carriers Southwest (29%), JetBlue (20%), US Airways (11%) Operated at 48.6% daily capacity On-time performance 76.1% departures, 74.9% arrivals Airport is susceptible to delays and ground stop programs in the NYC, PHL and WAS areas
WASHINGTON DULLES (IAD)

JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Primary international hub for United Four-bank model that feeds international flight departures. Scheduled Peak Index 26.5% (/) Dominant carrier United and affiliates (51% of total departures) Operated at 35.1% daily capacity On-time performance 75.6% departures, 75.1% arrivals New runway opened 2008
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HOUSTON INTERCONTINENTAL (IAH)

200! 150! 100! 50! 0! 6! 7! 8! 9! 10!11!12!13!14!15!16!17!18!19!20!21! avg_ops! avg_capacity! avg_scheduled!
JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Primary hub for Continental Five-bank structure to feed international schedules, domestic connections Scheduled Peak Index 27.9% (/) Dominant carrier CO/XE (90%) Operated at 55.4% daily capacity On-time performance 87.7% departures, 88.8% arrivals Single carrier dominance, operations at 55% capacity and good weather.
NEW YORK KENNEDY (JFK)

JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Competitive airport with demandmanaged capacity program by FAA Scheduled Peak Index 15.1% (/) Competition strong between JetBlue (39% of domestic departures), Delta (39%) and American (14%) Operated at 80% daily capacity On-time performance 74.2% departures, 64.6% arrivals Congested NYC airspace results in frequent delay programs in and out of JFK airport and region
LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL (LAX)

JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE International gateway hub with evening departures to Asia, Europe Scheduled Peak Index 12.9% (/) Primary carriers WN (21%), AA (20%), UA (20%) Operated at 54.6% daily capacity On-time performance 80.7% departures, 76.7% arrivals Runway improvements, parallel approaches result in high departure and arrival flow capacity
NEW YORK LAGUARDIA (LGA)

JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Fragmented competition with heavily regulated slot structure that spreads demand through the day Scheduled Peak Index 11.3% (/) Highest utilization in U.S. Operated at 84.3% daily capacity On-time performance 71.1% departures, 56.7% arrivals Congested terminal, ramp and taxiway infrastructure Frequent ground delay programs into airport, surrounding airspace
MIAMI INTERNATIONAL (MIA)

140! 120! 100! 80! 60! 40! 20! 0! 6! 7! 8! 9! 10!11!12!13!14!15!16!17!18!19!20!21! avg_ops! avg_capacity! avg_scheduled!
JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Primary hub for American Scheduled Peak Index 20.4% (/) Dominant carrier AA/MQ (75%) Operated at 36.1% daily capacity On-time performance 62.3% departures, 67.5% arrivals Terminal capacity constrained relative to runway capacity Susceptible to delay programs in and out of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic
MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (MSP)

JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Primary hub for Delta/Northwest Four/five bank schedule. Scheduled Peak Index 30.2% (/) Dominant carriers DL/NW (75%) Operated at 49.6% daily capacity On-time performance 82.8% departures, 79.0% arrivals Connecting hub (domestic and international) with banked structure designed to maximize feed
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CHICAGO OHARE (ORD)

JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Primary hub for United and American Scheduled Peak Index 14.4% (/) Operated at 71.6% daily capacity On-time performance 73.6% departures, 75.3% arrivals New runway capacity resulted in significant capacity increase Terminal facilities are constrained, limiting additional operations Historical demand management programs in place by FAA/DOT
PHILADELPHIA INTERNATIONAL (PHL)

120! 100! 80! 60! 40! 20! 0! 6! 7! 8! 9! 10!11!12!13!14!15!16!17!18!19!20!21! avg_ops! avg_capacity! avg_scheduled!
JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Primary hub for US Airways, presence by AirTran and Southwest Scheduled Peak Index 17.1% (/) Dominant carrier US (approx. 50%) plus Southwest (23%) Operated at 74.6% daily capacity On-time performance 73.3% departures, 67.0% arrivals Highly utilized, land-constrained airport with mix of local and connecting traffic
SAN FRANCISCO INTL (SFO)

120! 100! 80! 60! 40! 20! 0! 6! 7! 8! 9! 10!11!12!13!14!15!16!17!18!19!20!21! avg_ops! avg_capacity! avg_scheduled!
JUNE 2009 CAPACITY & SCHEDULE Primary hub for United with strong presence by other carriers Earlier bank structure than more eastern airports to feed Asia flights. ScheduledPeak Index 18.1% (/) Dominant carrier UA (approx. 60%) Operated at 63.2% daily capacity On-time performance 75.0% departures, 67.7% arrivals June capacity impacted by weather conditions (morning fog) with capacity increase during afternoon hours.
4.9
Viability of Capacity Enforcement: Economic Harm Throughout Section Four, we have considered the balance between scheduled airport
operations and the defined FAA Airport Benchmark Capacity and actual departure and arrival flow capacity for each airport. We have identified why the ACB offers a useful starting point for inter-airport comparison, but needs to be augmented with capacity data regarding ramp and taxiway space, local airspace capacity and human factors to be a useful metric against airline scheduling methods. We recognize that at key U.S. airports, scheduled arrival and departure capacity can exceed the available runway capacity. Consumer advocates have stated that if airlines reduce their flight operations levels such that total planned flight operations never exceed the available capacity of the airport, long and recurring flight delays would be cured. As observed in Section 3.8, airports that operate well under their defined benchmark capacity still operate under similar on-time performance metrics as their more congested peers. To add depth to this dialogue between advocates and airlines, we explored the following: If every airport operated at its minimum departure and arrival rates for a given calendar month (that is, if airlines planned operating schedules such that total planned operations never exceeded the available runway departure and arrival capacity) how many flights would be lost at the 77 airports included in the FAA ASPM data set? For the airports that are operating under this standard (the airports already scheduled such that maximum departures and arrivals never exceed capacity) how does on-time performance for departures and arrivals compare with airports operating over this standard (where some reduction in scheduled operations would occur)? What is the economic cost of reducing operations to never exceed 100% of capacity, and how does that cost vary at between 70% of capacity and 130% of capacity? To define the scope of this analysis, we reviewed 72 scheduled-service airports in the FAA ASPM data set and considered the daytime hours of 7am through 9pm. We utilized flight schedule information based on OAG to include both domestic and international flight operations. We defined our time period as April 1, 2010 through September 30, 2010.
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First, for each hour in the time window for these days, we tallied (1) the total scheduled arrivals and departures and (2) the available runway capacity measured as the sum of Airport Arrival and Departure Rates. We also summed total facility operations and operations by type. Second, we calculated the minimum airport capacity observed for each hour during each month, excluding the rare cases where reported capacity was zero due to full airport closure. Because our sample set included only summer data, we did not expect (nor did we observe) any multi-hour airport closures. In our third step, we compared the actual scheduled operations (arrivals and departures) against the minimum capacity observed at the airport for that hour during that specific month. We believe this is a reasonable proxy for how airline planners assess airport capacity based on historical weather performance, which can vary significantly by month. We counted any excess of scheduled operations over the minimum observed capacity as displaced operations for our model. Fourth, we explored the resulting displacement of operations if the target capacity level were adjusted in a range between 70% and 130% of the worst-case arrival/departures rate. That is, if an airport had a worst-case rate of 100 per hour, we explored the schedule displacement resulting from a capacity of 70 through 130 operations (arrivals + departures) per hour. We then calculated the economic harm from each of those levels to the U.S. economy including only direct tourism expenses and not lost productivity or time. 4.9.1 Exploring Capacity Loss and On-Time Performance After completing an hour-by-hour analysis of scheduled operations (between 7am and 9pm from April 1, 2010 through September 30, 2010) and the worst-case ADR+AAR capacity reported for the airport during each month for the respective hour of day, we tallied the total number of flights displaced by reducing planned flight operations to the worst-case capacity scenario. This method takes into account real-world factors such as the occurrence of weather events, human factors associated with the tower and ramp management, and taxiway congestion. We found that of 72 airports with reported arrivals and departures, 35 had a positive number of displaced flights, while 37 did not require any schedule adjustment to meet this standard. Table 31 below differentiates between the airports with displacement and those without.
Table 31: Airport Displacement from 100% ADR+AAR Capacity Restriction Based on April 2010 through September 2010 (OAG Scheduled vs. Minimum Capacity/Month)
Airports With Displacement ORD IAH SLC LGA MKE MIA PHL MCO BWI JFK MDW SEA BOS IAD DCA CLT HOU SDF SFO SAN FLL ATL DAL PSP EWR PDX ANC DFW MSP SAT DEN DTW MHT SNA PHX Airports Without Displacement LAX AUS RSW LAS SJC PBI MEM MSY TUS TPA PIT SJU CLE IND BHM STL ABQ OGG BNA JAX PVD HNL BUR DAY MCI OMA LGB CVG BUF HPN RDU ONT ISP OAK BDL SWF SMF
For the airports with displacement, found that the average schedule displacement was 4.0% of capacity between 7am and 9pm during the target months. This is a considerable number; it translates to about 198,000 flights, of which two-thirds are in Chicago OHare, New York LaGuardia, Philadelphia, New York JFK, Boston and Charlotte. Chart 20 below illustrates the concentration of schedule displacement in a handful of airports; the full list of both sets of airports can be found in Exhibits H and I. Chart 20: Displaced Scheduled Flights if Worst-Case ADR+AAR Assumed Based on April 2010 through September 2010 (OAG Scheduled vs. Minimum Capacity/Month)
14%$ 13%$ 11%$ 8%$ 8%$

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ORD$ LGA$ PHL$ JFK$ BOS$ CLT$ SFO$ ATL$ EWR$ DFW$ DEN$ SNA$ IAH$ MKE$ MCO$ MDW$ IAD$ HOU$ SAN$ DAL$ PDX$ MSP$ DTW$
4%$ 4%$ 4%$ 3%$ 3%$ 3%$ 2%$ 2%$ 2%$ 2%$ 2%$ 1%$ 1%$ 1%$ 1%$ 1%$ 1%$ 1%$
This does not automatically mean these airports are overscheduled it simply means that the capacity reduction from assuming the worst-case weather scenario for a given month and time of day, without consideration to the frequency or duration of such a disruption, would generate the most reduction in schedule at these airports. But what would be accomplished by reducing flight schedules at these airports? To answer this, we compared on-time arrival and departure performance across the two groups of airports those with displacement and those without. We found that the airports with schedule displacement operated at an 80.5% on-time departure rate during April-September 2010 and an 80.6% on-time arrival rate. In comparison, airports without displacement operated at 83.9% departures and 82.0% arrivals. Table 32 below illustrates the two categories. Table 32: Performance by Displacement Category (April through September 2010) Based on April 2010 through September 2010 (OAG Scheduled vs. Minimum Capacity/Month) On-Time Performance Data from DOT Part 234 ASQP for Reporting Carriers
Airports 35 37 Scheduled 4,915,554 1,733,141 Capacity 7,108,627 6,172,742 Utilization 69.1% 28.1% OTD% 80.5% 83.9% OTA% 80.6% 82.0%
w/ Displacement w/o Displacement
This is a notable difference between the two airport categories. It confirms both that airports with higher overall utilization have somewhat lower arrival and departure performance than less-utilized peers, and that airports with significant differences between good-weather and bad-weather runway capacity are more susceptible to flight delays. But Table 32 confirms an even more important point even airports that operate comfortably under their actual runway capacity are still susceptible to flight delays and cancellations. They are susceptible at a moderately lower rate than their peers, but simply reducing operations is no guarantee that any material performance improvement will occur. For example, four of the ten top-performing on-time departure airports (and 8 of the top 20) had schedule displacement from bad weather. Conversely, 16 of the 20 worst performing on-time departure airports were in the displacement category. Having schedule displacement from operating at 100% of worst-case runway capacity does not guarantee bad on-time performance relative to peers, but it does put airports at a relative disadvantage.
4.9.2
Flight and Economic Loss from Varying ADR+AAR Capacity Limits From the previous section, we concluded from our exploratory analysis airports with
scheduled flights in excess of the worst-case runway capacity had marginally worse on-time performance relative to their peers. We then explored the schedule displacement resulting from varying levels of runway capacity, measured as a percentage of worst-case arrivals (AAR) and departures (ADR). Using the worst-case capacity (ADR+AAR) for each hour, measured monthly, we calculated the rate based on a range of 70% to 130% of the worst-case rate. Our objective was to address a simple question: if airport operations were reduced to a suitable margin underneath the worst-case airport capacity rate, how many flights would be displaced, and what would be the consumer harm? We used the actual scheduled capacity for each airport, by hour and day, to calculate the loss in scheduled flights from operating at a strict capacity limit of the target percentage and rate. We focused on 24 major airports where we could measure both loss in capacity and passenger traffic, in order to ultimately consider the economic harm from varying levels of ADR+AAR compliance. This group represented a total of 4.4 million scheduled flights during the period from April 2010 through September 2010. Table 33 (on the next page) illustrates the various levels of capacity (measured as a percentage of worst-case ADR+AAR) and the resulting schedule displacement. We found that at many major airports, even operating at 130% of the worst-case ADR+AAR still resulted in some loss of flights. This is due to the wide difference between the worst-case and best-case runway capacity rates. We calculated that reducing airport operations to 80% of the worst-case ADR+AAR rate would result in the loss of more than 11% of capacity. Finally, we translated the loss of capacity above into a measurement of economic harm. We used the number of flights from Table 33 to estimate the loss in scheduled capacity from compliance with an absolute percentage limit on airport runway capacity. To estimate the number of passengers impacted by this schedule reduction, we used average seat factor for each airport above for the period from April through September 2010, based on DOT T-100 data. Each airport therefore had a unique seat factor (passengers divided by seats) that was applied to the number of displaced departures and arrivals at each airport.
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Table 33: Schedule Displacement from Various Percentages of Minimum ADR+AAR Rates Based on April 2010 through September 2010 (OAG Scheduled vs. Minimum Capacity/Month)
Airport OAG Flts 70% 80% 90% 100% 110% 120% 130%
ORD LGA PHL ATL JFK BOS CLT DFW DEN SFO EWR IAH MCO MDW MSP IAD DTW PHX SAN BWI SEA DCA LAX STL
Group
400,526 165,938 184,863 427,043 160,055 149,459 210,625 292,135 286,806 148,343 165,057 234,751 126,309 84,015 185,356 121,794 205,798 177,103 71,922 108,532 129,225 122,113 214,177 71,536
4,443,481
141,451 59,264 58,183 95,485 46,506 43,850 30,910 35,415 39,097 31,997 40,917 34,233 8,022 10,376 11,021 8,692 13,452 8,520 10,791 12,263 5,133 17,812 10,265 448
774,103
108,365 45,853 42,645 61,829 32,802 30,789 20,195 18,531 24,407 19,942 25,714 19,019 5,827 5,134 4,672 4,646 6,001 3,446 5,286 4,647 1,543 7,461 2,482 110
501,346
79,431 33,501 29,567 35,613 21,668 19,931 13,648 11,486 14,400 11,489 13,616 9,694 3,839 2,466 2,162 2,322 2,433 1,435 2,097 1,325 540 1,858 229 15
314,765
56,799 22,262 19,701 18,098 13,442 11,818 9,380 7,919 7,748 6,299 5,451 5,193 2,208 1,408 1,188 1,127 1,102 793 619 325 271 229 1 1
193,382
39,791 12,907 12,598 8,989 7,948 6,399 6,485 5,735 3,973 3,182 1,628 3,033 1,191 1,022 613 548 526 558 179 75 122 17 0 0
117,519
27,419 5,767 7,638 5,464 4,755 3,078 4,497 4,412 1,974 1,496 355 1,795 567 842 209 250 247 363 38 5 33 0 0 0
71,204
19,205 1,973 4,099 4,086 2,885 1,309 3,049 3,545 995 674 65 1,017 252 759 21 109 105 191 8 0 9 0 0 0
44,356
With Table 34, if airlines matched flight schedules to 100% of the worst-case airport capacity rate during each month last April through September, the displacement would be 16.8 million passengers. Extrapolated to a full-year (with April-September traffic representing 52.5% of the 2010 total) this means that fixing airport schedules to 100% of worst-case capacity would displace 32.1 million passenger enplanements. Fixing capacity to 80% of the worst-case rate to leave a buffer for severe weather would displace nearly 85 million passenger enplanements.
Table 34: Passengers Displaced from Various Capacity Restrictions (in thousands) (Percent of Worst-Case ADR+AAR by Month, April 2010 September 2010)
100% = Schedule Limit Equals Actual Worst-Case Airport Capacity Rate Observed 120% = Schedule is 20% higher than Actual Worst-Case Rate Observed Airport ORD ATL JFK LGA PHL BOS CLT DFW SFO DEN EWR IAH MCO MDW MSP IAD PHX DTW SAN BWI SEA DCA LAX STL Apr-Sep Full Year Pass. (000s) 32,042 41,423 20,647 11,782 14,234 12,555 17,061 26,876 17,059 25,526 15,515 18,780 15,536 8,738 15,199 10,352 18,419 15,229 7,696 10,745 13,956 8,548 25,273 6,009 409,200 778,299 70% 11,316 9,262 5,999 4,208 4,480 3,683 2,504 3,258 3,680 3,480 3,846 2,739 987 1,079 904 739 886 995 1,155 1,214 554 1,247 1,211 38 69,463 132,119 80% 8,669 5,997 4,231 3,256 3,284 2,586 1,636 1,705 2,293 2,172 2,417 1,522 717 534 383 395 358 444 566 460 167 522 293 9 44,616 84,860 90% 6,354 3,454 2,795 2,379 2,277 1,674 1,105 1,057 1,321 1,282 1,280 776 472 256 177 197 149 180 224 131 58 130 27 1 27,758 52,797 100% 4,544 1,756 1,734 1,581 1,517 993 760 729 724 690 512 415 272 146 97 96 82 82 66 32 29 16 0 0 16,873 32,092 110% 3,183 872 1,025 916 970 538 525 528 366 354 153 243 146 106 50 47 58 39 19 7 13 1 0 0 10,160 19,324 120% 2,194 530 613 409 588 259 364 406 172 176 33 144 70 88 17 21 38 18 4 0 4 0 0 0 6,147 11,693 130% 1,536 396 372 140 316 110 247 326 78 89 6 81 31 79 2 9 20 8 1 0 1 0 0 0 3,847 7,318
These are big numbers, and they confirm why airlines schedule peak airports at rates above the worst-case capacity observed. Displacing 32 million passengers per year would have significant economic impact on both airlines and the general economy. To measure this impact, we began with the full-year displaced passenger totals from above, measured in thousands. According to BTS data, during the period from April through September 2010, 79% of passenger enplanements were domestic and 21% international. We applied these percentages to the full-year total above into domestic and international enplanements. We divided each count of passenger enplanements in two to reflect unique passengers; we assumed the average number of segments per unique passenger was two, mixing oneway flights, multi-stop flights and round-trip itineraries.
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We assumed that 43% of international passengers originated offshore, so the loss of this traffic would have negative economic impact for the U.S. economy.21
We assumed that offshore visitors to the United States spent an average of $4,000 per unique visitor, based on a study by the U.S. Travel Association. We assume no negative economic impact from displacement of U.S. citizens visiting abroad, since the negative impact would be on offshore economies.
We assumed that each unique passenger spent an average of $644.15 on hotels, car rentals and other non-airline expenses for each domestic trip.
We assumed an average lost revenue of $188 per domestic passenger (based on Q1-Q3 average revenue per enplanement, U.S. carriers from DOT Form 41) and $344 per international passenger enplanement.
Finally, we assumed a benefit to carriers from not operating as many flights.
We
assumed that all fleet, crew and maintenance costs were fixed, but that fuel savings were appropriate. We used an average fuel burn per flight segment of 2,000 gallons and an average fuel price of $3.00 per gallon. Table 35 contains the results of these calculations. Fixing flight schedules at no more than 100% of worst-case airport runway capacity available would reduce total flights by just over 193,000 per year. This would displace a total of 32 million passengers, of which 25 million would be domestic and the balance international. The loss of airline revenue would be $7 billion per year, offset by $2.2 billion in fuel savings for a net loss of $4.9 billion. The indirect economic harm to the hotel, car rental and other tourism-related industries would be $13.8 billion per year.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
21
See http://poweroftravel.org/statistics/media_fotw.htm February 16, 2012 Page 97
Table 35: Economic Harm from Schedule Reductions to Match Worst-Case Capacity (Percent of Worst-Case ADR+AAR by Month, April 2010 September 2010)
100% = Schedule Limit Equals Actual Worst-Case Airport Capacity Rate Observed 120% = Schedule is 20% higher than Actual Worst-Case Rate Observed
Full Year Impact (000s) DomesticPax (000s) Unique DomesticPax (000s) Direct Value/Trip (mil) (a) InternationalPax (000s) US-Originating (000s) Int'l-Originating (000s) Unique Inbound Pax (000s) Total Spend (mil) (b) Lost Airline Revenue (mm) Domestic (mm) 115,593 International (mm) 56,224 Saved Flights Saved Fuel (Millions) Negative Impact (Millions)
Base Case (Current) 778,299 614,856 307,428 $194,954 163,443 93,162 70,280 35,140 $140,561
Schedule Limit @ Percent of Worst ADR+AAR 80% 90% 100% 110% 120% 84,860 52,797 32,092 19,325 11,693 67,039 41,710 25,353 15,266 9,238 33,520 20,855 12,677 7,633 4,619 $21,256 $13,225 $8,039 $4,841 $2,929 17,821 11,087 6,739 4,058 2,456 10,158 6,320 3,841 2,313 1,400 7,663 4,768 2,898 1,745 1,056 3,831 2,384 1,449 873 528 $15,326 $9,535 $5,796 $3,490 $2,112 $12,603 $6,130 952,557 -$5,715 $49,600 $7,841 $3,814 598,054 -$3,588 $30,827 $4,766 $2,318 367,426 -$2,205 $18,715 $2,870 $1,396 223,286 -$1,340 $11,257 $1,737 $845 135,288 -$812 $6,810
To summarize Table 35, limiting airport schedules to the worst-case runway capacity is likely to result in $18.7 billion dollars per year in economic harm. This is likely to result in higher fares and higher prices at hotels, car rental agencies and other tourism-related industries. The result is clear: curtailing scheduled operations in order to match the worst-case runway capacity in a given month is a tremendous loss of revenue for airlines, and an even greater loss for tourism industries. The more significantly capacity is cut, the more the loss to airlines and the economy accelerates. We conclude that: 1. Reducing flight schedules to match the worst-case runway capacity rates observed is neither practical nor economic as a solution to reducing flight delays. 2. Of the 72 airports studied, 37 airports already operate under this threshold level. While they have a marginally better on-time performance record relative to their peers, they still incur significant flight delay and on-time performance below the FAAs 88% target rate.
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3. Reducing capacity is expensive, both to airlines and to the economy. Matching schedules to the worst-case runway capacity rates will drive $18.7 billion per year in economic harm, borne both by airlines ($4.9 billion) and by the tourism industry ($13.8 billion). 4. Reducing capacity is expensive to the American consumer total enplanements would decline by more than 32 million per year relative to 2010. 5. Increasing airspace capacity to reduce flight delays is a more practical approach, as it preserves the economic benefits of flights while potentially offering a more effective path to reducing flight delays.
4.10
Conclusions In Section Three, we reviewed flight-specific delay and cancellation information. We
identified key factors relevant to airline planning that mitigated the follow-on impact of flight delays. We illustrated that individual airline decisions, made in isolation, did not result in the fabled follow-on flight delays that frame the overscheduling debate. In this section, we reviewed airport-specific factors to present the other side of the overscheduling equation if independent flight schedules do not cause overscheduling, do sudden losses of capacity at the airport level create delays? And how do the scheduling decisions of all carriers, aggregated into a single demand level, compare with available capacity? An airport-level definition of over-scheduling, isolated from probabilistic estimates of weather impact, non-scheduled and type mixes, and relative capacity losses is indeterminate from benchmark capacity studies. In other words, the concept of optimum capacity as defined by FAA Benchmark Studies has no operational relevance to airline-specific flight scheduling and block time decisions. Using Benchmark studies to claim a given airport is overscheduled is therefore a leap of logic that ignores core constraints of operational relevance to airlines. We conclude that meaningful estimates of maximum airport capacity can only be estimated through real-world operational patterns and competing demand profiles for airport resources (among scheduled and non-scheduled airlines), airspace (among competing airports in a given region) and the composition of demand (among different aircraft types with varying separation requirements).
The answer to our exploratory analysis appears simple: no individual scheduling factor or airport configuration issue can solely explain variations in flight delays and on-time performance trends discussed. The villain appears to be neither airline nor airport that is, the inability of our national airspace system to accept flights in a timely manner due to antiquated infrastructure is a primary driver of the trends illustrated at both the airline and airport level. Indeed, the very definitions of capacity used by the FAA wholly excuse airspace inefficiency and ATC shortcomings by excluding those factors from capacity estimates. An airline flight schedule may be perfectly aligned for a given airports capacity, under a variety of weather conditions but excessive delays result from human factors, from outdated ATC infrastructure and from conflicting airspace requirements.
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Section Five: Rebutting Overscheduling Arguments
SECTION FIVE: REBUTTING OVERSCHEDULING ARGUMENTS In this section, we address specific arguments made to advocate the existence of overscheduling as a controllable industry decision made by carriers as part of normal competition. We address three common misconceptions, advocated by notable regulatory leaders and consumer advocates. These misconceptions are representative of other statements that follow three common themes: 1. That airlines have not de-peaked schedules, and that de-peaking will solve departure delays across the country; 2. That flight schedules are unreliable; and 3. That over-scheduling causes tarmac delays and other long flight delays. For each theme, we present a representative statement along with our analysis based on the research and exploratory evidence collected in Sections Three and Four of this paper. 5.1 Airlines Must De-Peak Schedules When the airport can handle 120 in an hour, and you try to have 80 go in the first 20 minutes, its just not going to work. We will have to work better together and the FAA wont just sit back and be the scapegoat in the future. We truly need additional transparency to the facts behind many of our delays. Too often I hear a Captain announce; Well, were gonna be delayed another 20 minutes until we get a departure slot from the FAA, when in reality, theyre waiting because their carrier scheduled 26 departures during a five minute window. De-peaking is the answer here. Check the departure boards at our busiest airports, and youll see what Im talking about. This is a cooperative effort, and all the parties involved need to take responsibility and find a sensible path forward. Randy Babbitt, FAA Administrator, April 20, 2010. Recognizing that the Administrators statement contained a measured dose of hyperbole regarding the concentration of flight departures into a single 20-minute window, the Administrators statement reflects a common belief by the public and by regulators that airlines have not embraced de-peaking. However, this line of reasoning is faulty and misguided. First, airlines have embraced de-peaking of key hubs, as we have demonstrated in Section Three and Four. Spreading departures and arrivals over longer time periods allows more efficient utilization of gate and terminal assets. Starting with Americans depeaking efforts in the late
1990s, all major U.S. carriers have embraced the depeaked hub over the past decade. But depeaking hubs, as we showed, is not connected alone to improving flight delays. De-peaking can improve asset utilization and capacity, reducing fares for passengers and improving competition. It also comes with a price the loss of between-bank flexibility to recover flight operations during operational disruptions. Long-term schedule disruptions such as extended weather events will impact both peaked and un-peaked schedules. What the FAA Administrator is likely driving at is the issue of competitive demand by multiple airlines for constrained departure and arrival resources. It is conceivable that multiple airlines, acting independently, may schedule flight departures within a narrow window that conflict with one another. This is a valid concern, but it misses a fundamental reality for airline scheduling, a reality that should be clear to an aviation regulator: anti-trust laws explicitly prevent airlines from collaborating on forward schedules, forcing each scheduling decision to be made in isolation. Forcing demand management programs on airlines through slot controls and binding allocation of departure and arrival resources has not addressed delays and cancellations. The FAAs management of airport slots at LaGuardia, Newark and Kennedy has resulted in the worst on-time performance in the country for many years. DOT and DOJ intervene when airlines propose slot transfers that would more efficiently allocate capacity at the airports and concentrate scheduling decisions in a smaller set of carriers. There are strongly conflicting objectives from different agencies regulating airlines FAA, DOT and DOJ. If the FAA prioritizes schedule efficiency and resource allocation by replicating the core schedule coordination efforts with appropriate anti-trust immunity explicitly granted used to reallocate and manage Chicago OHare capacity in 2007, then airlines may be able to exchange priorities and demand objectives to efficiently allocate runway resources among carriers. 5.2 Airline Schedules are Unreliable Airlines need to take a step back on scheduling practices that are at times out of line with reality... Passengers are growing weary of schedules that aren't worth the electrons they're printed on." Marion Blakey, FAA Administrator, September 12, 2007 Airline scheduling practices have adapted, particularly since the operational peak of 2007. The summer of 2007 was the worst period of flight delays observed during the past 20
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years, and consumers were infuriated with the combination of peak capacity, ATC inefficiency and bad weather that impacted the nation. During 2007 as a whole, on-time arrival performance hit 71.3%, a drop of more than 5% year over year. During the summer of 2007, performance averaged under 70%. As Blakey noted, airline schedules had crossed the threshold of unreliability and customers were upset. But since that time, airlines have responded by: Increasing scheduled turn times at key hubs nationwide, and across the system, in order to insulate follow-on flights from the impact of late arriving aircraft; and Added additional en-route time to flights with highly variable taxi-out times, internalizing the impact of departure queues. Combined with a 13% decrease in domestic capacity, results from these initiatives were quickly evident, as on-time performance reached 79% in 2009 and has remained above 75% since. During 2009 and 2010, the lowest on-time performance recorded was 72% during the blizzard-filled month of December 2010. In Section Three, we demonstrate that these factors have allowed airlines to sustain high on-time arrival performance even as the variability of airport operations and airspace capacity has increased. Flight schedules today are just as reliable as they were in the mid-1990s, while overall system utilization has increased 20% in the 15 years following. 5.3 Overscheduling is the Problem The primary reason for tarmac delays is not weather, as the airlines would have us believe. It stems from the fact that the nation's most congested airports are routinely overscheduled during peak travel times. Rather than use the weather as a shield to hide behind as justification for delays and cancellations, the airlines should work on moving capacity to underutilized time slots and secondary airports. Kate Hanni, FlyersRights.org, Editorial in USA Today, March 3, 2010 As a consumer advocate, Kate Hanni responds to complaints voiced to her organization after long flight delays and other operational disruptions. Yet her consistent advocacy that overscheduling causes tarmac delays is flat wrong. Even DOT has agreed that weather is the primary cause of long tarmac delays, not airline schedules or other airline-specific factors. Hanni defines overscheduling as the practice of intentionally scheduling more flights at a given airport
than it can handle during bad weather situations. The problem, of course, is that during severe weather conditions, even a 50% reduction in flight schedules on impacted days may not be sufficient to prevent long delays and flight cancellations. Weather conditions are random, at least until our weather technology permits accurate forecasts that predict weather conditions by the hour on specific days, months in advance. Weather is the direct and causal factor in flight delays. This fact is indisputable.
Weather delays are manifested through a variety of reported causes, from carrier-related delays (when weather prevents personnel from accessing the airport or the ramp) to airspace-related congestion. Weather is highly variable. And as discussed, weather conditions at de-peaked hubs can cause rolling flight delays through the day. The question never answered by Hanni is what capacity reduction would be required to eliminate delays. The answer, of course, is impossible, since an absolute elimination of lengthy delays would require an infinite reduction in flight schedules. Moving capacity to secondary airports and off-peak times would be disastrous for both consumers and airlines while a few consumers may prefer a 2am departure from suburban New Yorks Newburgh airport to Los Angeles, the resulting revenue will not be sufficient to cover operating costs. Hanni detracts from the valid ongoing discussion of airline delays and scheduling. She presents no quantitative analysis to back her claims. We believe that airlines should directly respond to consumer accusations about overscheduling with factual evidence. It is true that NextGen air traffic control infrastructure, when fully deployed and enabled on todays aircraft, can make a material difference in delay performance. benchmarks and reasonable estimates of weather impact. Until that time, however, airline overscheduling is a fiction, as airline schedule plans are based in concrete airport operational
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Section Six: Conclusions and Recommendations
SECTION SIX: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS This paper addresses consumer and regulatory claims that airlines engage in aggressive scheduling behavior that routinely exceeds the available capacity at key U.S. airport facilities. We find no evidence that such practices exist today, and demonstrate that U.S. carriers have taken important steps to address flight delays since 2007, including: Material increases in scheduled turn times, adding valuable gate time to absorb delays from late inbound aircraft; Additional en-route planned times (from gate to gate) allowing increasing variation in taxi-in and taxi-out times to be absorbed while meeting the planned schedule; Moderating schedule peaks through aggressive de-peaking campaigns, both systemwide and at major hubs. Through a comprehensive comparison of airline schedules against published and actual benchmarks for airport capacity, we conclude that both individually and in aggregate, airlines are not engaging in scheduling decisions that under reasonable variation in weather conditions exceed the airports ability to operate. However, significant variability in airspace capacity continues to drive delays and cancellations at major U.S. airports. The FAA has begun implementation of NextGen infrastructure improvements that should address this variability by opening more flexible departure and arrival corridors into airports. Until NextGen is operational, though, airline accommodation of taxi-time and flight-time variability will be essential to preserve the integrity of flight schedules as published. Our work differs from prior analysis in two key respects. First, we conduct a ground-up flight-level analysis to address specific differences among airlines, airports and flight operations strategies. Using this ground-up strategy, we isolate aircraft turn times, departure and arrival patterns, and other key features of airline-specific operating models. Second, we integrate full weather data to isolate conditions that reduce capacity at key airports, and assess the frequency with which operational capacity drops below scheduled demand by airlines. Throughout our analysis, we debunk common operational assumptions about airline hub schedules, delays and cancellations. First, we show that independent airline scheduling decisions do not trigger capacity-driven flight delays. Even the cumulative impact of multiple, independent
scheduling decisions by competing airlines (without information exchange under current antitrust laws) do not currently exceed the available capacity thresholds of airport and runway infrastructure. However, we demonstrate that the FAAs measurements of airport capacity are really measurements of runway capacity, as they exclude both ramp/taxiway and airspace constraints critical to a continuous departure flow. Second, we show that the former practice of peaked schedule operations is largely obsolete. Counter-intuitively, we show that airports with significant peaks in their flight The valleys schedules are actually the least prone to prolonged operational disruptions.
between schedule peaks permit operational recovery and ensure flexibility to contain disruptions. Unpredicted, severe weather events are the primary drivers of extended delays, as they impact both local airport and regional airspace capacity. Airlines respond to this risk through increased turn times, longer en-route times and proactive flight cancellations. Third, we show that the composition of an airlines flight schedule has little impact on overall en-route and delay variability. Substitution of regional jets and turboprops for mainline aircraft may result in marginally longer flight times. However, the flexibility to depart turboprops or some regional jets off secondary runways may actually cut overall block time by reducing taxiout times. Fourth, we show that FAA Operational Benchmarks only represent a useful starting point for assessing the appropriate level of flight operations. The FAAs benchmarks are a crude measurement intended to facilitate comparison across airports. They are not useful for measuring the alignment of airline schedules against capacity at a specific facility, where local ramp, taxiway and airspace infrastructure must be incorporated to judge the viability of departure and arrival rates relative to physical infrastructure. Fifth, we recognize the limitations of proactive schedule management across airlines in the absence of explicit anti-trust immunity for communicating preferences and objectives. Antitrust immunity should also be complemented by government abstention from interference in slot transactions among carriers to more optimally distribute arrival and departure capacity. Based on these factors, we conclude that four core conditions make airports susceptible to flight delays. The first condition is consistently high utilization throughout the day. The pattern of utilization is more relevant than the aggregate total of utilization. Smooth demand patterns
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through the day allow airlines to match available capacity better, by metering demand for gate and ramp resources and maximizing connecting opportunities. However, constant gate utilization through the day also reduces opportunities to make up time through the day. Second, finite limits on gate and ramp space at airport can frustrate departure flows and arrival rates. The less space that is available to wait out gate availability and takeoff delays, the more congestion results on the ramp and en-route as airlines and ATC reroute aircraft away from congested airports. Third, significant loss of runway departure and arrival capacity during bad weather can place actual airport capacity significantly below the aggregate demand by airlines. Finally, highly variable rates and intervals of severe weather can make advance predictions about average severe weather incurrence impossible. paralyzing impact when it occurs. Recommendations Based on our analysis, we make six core recommendations for airlines and regulators to improve flight delays and schedule efficiency. 1. Airport capacity improvements, with focus on taxiway and runway capacity 2. Update Airport and Airspace Capacity Benchmarks 3. NextGen acceleration and equipage subsidies 4. Collaborative scheduling decisions at peak airports 5. Free-market exchanges of slots at controlled airports 6. Reduction of government intervention in departure queue management by airlines 1. Airport Capacity Improvements The construction of geographically independent runways and associated ramp infrastructure, with sufficient spacing to permit concurrent operations on multiple runways, can make an immediate difference in airport departure and arrival capacity. Runways should not intersect, or if they do, sufficient distance must remain after the intersection to permit intersection departures and/or Land and Hold Short Operations (LAHSO). No new runways are planned for the three delay-prone major New York area airports. That issue must be addressed locally. This is a particular concern at airports such as Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas and Phoenix, where severe weather is very rare but can have a
2. Airport and Airspace Capacity Benchmarks We strongly advocate an update to the FAA Operational Benchmarks for airports, incorporating not only physical improvements to airport infrastructure (including new runways and taxiways already constructed) but also introducing new qualifiers for capacity during specific times of the day, seasons and weather conditions. explicitly incorporated into capacity metrics for airports. We also recommend that the FAA incorporate airspace capacity into airport-level analysis. Given the overlap of airspace capacity across independent airports (for example, combined airspace over IAD/DCA/BWI, SFO/OAK/SJC and PHL/EWR/LGA/JFK) we recommend that airspace capacity metrics be published on a regional basis as well. Regional indices for airspace capacity will focus capacity demands at locally competitive airports on the physical infrastructure available to absorb flights after departure. 3. NextGen Urgency and Equipage NextGen airspace infrastructure should offer new flexibility for airport controllers to manage blocked arrival and departure corridors during irregular operations. In the absence of fundamental changes in airline capacity, NextGen offers the best hope for further improvements in airline on-time performance and achievement of the FAAs target 88% on-time arrival rate throughout the year. Implementation of NextGen requires a combination of Congressional support and funding, airline agreement on standards and equipage of aircraft in a timeline manner. 4. Collaborative Scheduling with Antitrust Immunity Prior and current FAA Administrators have called on airlines to work together to address peaked schedules during key departure windows. While we demonstrated that airline de-peaking has reduced total demand for airport resources, further rationalization of runway and ramp resources requires communication among carriers when schedules are set months in advance. This requires explicit anti-trust immunity. The FAA has an established template for facilitating discussion among carriers, but the FAA should consider implementing a systemwide program to exchange schedule preferences in advance of publication. Meetings could be FAA supervised. To preserve consumer benefits, discussions should be limited to time slots and equipment types only, not destinations or fares. Ramp and taxiway capacity should be
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5. Free-Market Slot Exchanges Currently the FAA manages demand at three key facilities (DCA, LGA and JFK) with informal supervision being phased out at Chicago OHare. At slot-controlled facilities (DCA and LGA) DOT has intervened in free-market exchanges of slots among carriers. If DOTs primary objective is reducing flight delays and maximizing efficiency of schedules, slot exchanges are an important enabler by allowing airlines to trade sub-optimal departure windows for other slots that better fit their departure and arrival flows. Allowing airlines to function like other industries including the ability to buy and sell a tiny percent of total assets without extensive government oversight is critical to long-term industry health and overall efficiency of asset use. 6. Reduction of Government Intervention in Departure Flow Management In April 2010, DOT implemented new policies that limited taxi-out and taxi-in times to three hours. While intended to eliminate egregious taxi delays, this intervention resulted in a spike in airline cancellation rates. We fully agree that egregious tarmac delays should be eliminated a four- or five-hour time limit on taxi times would achieve this objective while allowing airlines to respond to more frequent two- and three-hour delays caused by constrained airspace, convective weather patterns and de-icing queues.
EXHIBITS AND APPENDICES
Exhibit A: Commentary on Literature Review We briefly review two different literatures in this section. First we review GAO reports to Congress on delays, and then relevant academic literature. GAO studies rely more on historical interpretation and discussions of the particular issues under study, while academic studies are grounded in prior work and research. We reviewed GAO works dating from 1979. The first major report on flight delays, entitled Aircraft Delays at Major U.S. Airports Can Be Reduced, concluded that aircraft delays are caused from excessive air traffic and bad weather, and recommended that Congress and FAA take action to shift traffic from peak to off-peak periods and to other less congested airports. A follow-on report (GAO/RCED-90-154) from 1990 updated this methodology with airlines ontime performance. Specifically, GAO examined if airlines had increased scheduled flight time in response to DOTs new on-time performance tracking, and sought to verify that flights omitted from on-time performance because of mechanical problems were correctly excluded from reported data. This report concluded that poor weather was the principal reason for late flights and that adjusted block times and operating schedules did not meaningfully impact on-time performance metrics. During the 1990s, there were a significant number of GAO reports and House and Senate Hearings related to the issue of delays of the FAA modernization efforts. The two most recent reports are GAO, National Airspace System: DOT and FAA Actions Will Likely Have a Limited Effect on Reducing Delays during Summer 2008 Travel Season, GAO-08-934T (Washington, D.C.: July 15, 2008) and GAO, National Airspace System: Summary of Flight Delay Trends for 34 Airports in the Continental United States, an E-supplement to GAO-10-542, GAO-10-543SP, (Washington, D.C.: May 2010). The comprehensive academic review of delay literature is Ning Xus dissertation (2007), Method for Deriving Multi-Factor Models for Predicting Airport Delays, with co-Directors Laskey and Sherry. Xu researched five factors relating to delays: weather related factors, traffic related factors, and traffic flow management related factors and other factors. Xus dissertation contains a complete overview of literary sources and is recommended for any scholars of the topic.
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Exhibit B: Airport-Specific Turns For June 2010, from DOT ASQP Data Set (Domestic flights by reporting carriers) Turn time based on aircraft tail-number turns scheduled and completed without diversion, cancellation or overnight layover
Turn Time Scheduled Actual 61.8 67.0 58.2 61.7 55.4 63.7 49.3 56.9 51.2 57.0 53.4 59.7 60.8 64.2 63.0 68.9 43.7 51.8 61.8 65.9 54.3 57.5 69.0 73.2 62.1 68.1 46.0 55.7 39.0 48.5 61.6 68.0 74.5 79.0 48.5 57.7 51.9 59.2 35.6 47.4 60.4 67.3 38.9 43.1 68.8 81.4 57.0 65.7 57.1 66.4 52.4 58.2 42.0 50.9 36.6 44.8 32.2 39.9 59.1 58.3 31.1 40.2 45.9 56.8 49.2 55.2 Delay Minutes per Impacted Flight Weather Airspace Inbound 2.6 13.9 18.9 2.7 17.8 31.2 4.7 11.8 18.1 1.6 10.0 24.5 0.3 12.3 22.1 0.2 10.9 19.6 2.2 12.8 16.5 3.2 12.1 15.3 0.7 8.0 26.5 0.6 11.6 18.0 0.2 7.5 43.6 3.2 12.7 16.5 2.2 20.0 16.4 4.7 16.6 22.4 2.4 13.4 29.8 0.1 16.0 17.9 1.3 13.7 17.8 2.6 21.9 24.8 1.4 23.3 28.4 6.4 10.1 32.6 1.8 18.3 21.5 0.5 12.2 27.2 3.2 22.9 12.7 3.4 19.7 18.5 4.8 21.6 26.7 1.7 27.3 21.8 6.5 17.1 23.4 3.1 11.5 30.3 2.9 11.9 30.7 0.2 6.1 20.9 1.3 6.3 25.0 3.9 18.8 24.4 2.5 15.1 25.2
ATL ORD DFW DEN LAX PHX IAH DTW LAS SLC SFO MSP CLT MCO BWI SEA MEM BOS LGA MDW EWR SAN JFK PHL IAD DCA TPA STL BNA HNL HOU FLL All U.S. Airports
Carrier 13.1 11.5 14.6 11.2 9.7 13.1 13.4 18.3 11.6 10.3 8.1 15.3 12.1 8.7 11.3 10.3 19.3 8.6 8.3 11.6 14.8 4.8 21.1 11.1 12.6 9.1 7.0 8.3 8.2 16.2 11.3 8.0 10.8
Exhibit C: Change in Scheduled Turn Times Based on scheduled aircraft turns by U.S. domestic flights by reporting carriers under DOT Part 234 ASQP. Flight schedules based on first Wednesday of June in 2005 and 2010.
Airport DTW PHX MEM MSP BWI JFK MKE SMF HOU IAH BTV LAS EWR MDW PHL ORD CLE 2005 42.2 34.9 43.6 47.4 32.3 63.0 39.2 31.0 26.1 65.3 35.3 37.4 58.8 29.8 50.1 55.9 55.6 2010 66.2 52.6 62.9 66.8 41.8 77.9 48.3 38.2 31.9 79.6 42.0 44.5 69.6 34.9 58.7 63.5 59.6 Change 57.0% 50.8% 44.2% 40.9% 29.1% 23.7% 23.4% 23.2% 22.0% 21.9% 19.1% 18.8% 18.3% 17.2% 17.2% 13.5% 7.1% Airport IAD DFW CLT MIA MCO DCA LAX ATL SEA FLL BOS LGA SLC SFO PIT DEN HNL 2005 57.5 53.3 62.2 63.9 44.7 51.4 54.5 64.1 55.3 47.4 54.9 54.4 57.4 71.0 51.2 59.7 134.4 2010 60.7 55.9 65.0 66.5 46.5 53.0 56.2 61.6 52.6 44.7 51.7 51.3 53.2 61.2 43.7 50.3 107.9 Change 5.5% 4.9% 4.5% 4.1% 3.9% 3.1% 3.0% -3.9% -4.9% -5.8% -5.8% -5.9% -7.4% -13.9% -14.7% -15.7% -19.7%
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Exhibit D: Capacity Loss vs. Weather Incidence, Full Year 2009 Bad weather indicates frequency of IFR or near-IFR conditions requiring radar separation and instrument approaches. Loss of capacity indicates maximum reduction in FAA Benchmark between VFR and IFR conditions.
Loss$of$Capacity$in$Bad$Weather$vs.$Occurence$of$Bad$Weather$(2009)$
MDW% MEM% DFW% EWR% MSP% CVG% DCA% DEN% MCO% DTW% ORD% MIA% BWI% SEA% LAX% STL% HNL%
0%% !52%%
BOS%
SAN%
PDX%
LGA%
TPA%
SFO%
PHL%
IAD%
30%% 26%% 24%% 24%% 24%% 22%%
20%% 20%% 20%% 20%% 19%% 18%% 18%% 18%% 18%% 18%% 17%% 16%% 16%% 15%% 14%% 13%% 13%% 13%% 13%%
11%% 10%%
PIT%
8%%
7%%
5%%
4%%
2%%
LAS%
1%% !38%%
IAH%
FLL%
JFK%
!7%%
!6%%
!16%% !22%% !27%% !32%% !34%% !28%% !36%% !43%%
!18%% !20%% !19%%
!21%% !20%%
!17%%
!17%% !26%% !32%%
!16%% !16%% !24%% !27%% !30%% !37%% !28%%
!26%% !33%% !38%% !45%% !50%% !31%% !34%%
%%CAP%LOSS%
%%WEATHER%
PHX%
0%%
ATL%
CLE%
CLT%
SLC%
Exhibit E: Key Operational Statistics, Major U.S. Airports

KEY STATISTICS: 7AM TO 10PM Utilization by Airlines Capacity Flights Util % 424,913 341,380 80.3% 469,685 366,744 78.1% 1,205,933 926,551 76.8% 485,967 368,778 75.9% 579,855 404,097 69.7% 1,141,379 765,937 67.1% 394,189 256,876 65.2% 531,344 321,660 60.5% 278,107 162,753 58.5% 768,646 445,110 57.9% 543,091 300,685 55.4% 896,673 496,168 55.3% 603,533 330,977 54.8% 526,978 282,233 53.6% 1,128,034 598,855 53.1% 915,828 465,215 50.8% 782,496 381,805 48.8% 367,277 178,033 48.5% 788,278 381,236 48.4% 449,693 212,996 47.4% 859,385 402,033 46.8% 1,293,382 592,415 45.8% 449,946 191,370 42.5% 751,946 272,827 36.3% 763,835 274,597 36.0% 790,149 271,572 34.4% 526,553 175,491 33.3% 471,103 150,464 31.9% 925,743 261,144 28.2% 695,034 180,977 26.0% 674,642 167,473 24.8% 769,722 185,885 24.2% 667,242 149,994 22.5% 1,014,640 198,226 19.5% 910,608 102,787 11.3% Departure Delays from Airport Flights Percent Minutes 35,790 21.3% 34.7 48,703 26.6% 41.0 105,093 22.4% 41.0 42,227 22.5% 40.8 49,465 24.2% 38.0 80,612 21.0% 45.6 20,625 16.4% 27.6 36,340 23.1% 35.5 14,676 18.8% 20.4 42,381 18.6% 29.1 27,794 18.7% 31.6 40,364 16.0% 29.1 36,455 22.7% 32.8 19,036 13.6% 24.7 74,585 25.0% 43.0 38,079 16.9% 37.3 33,259 17.3% 27.1 25,001 28.3% 24.0 34,650 18.3% 28.7 24,577 23.3% 26.3 34,900 17.3% 27.7 60,857 20.5% 36.0 22,985 24.0% 28.8 39,160 27.8% 42.9 34,254 24.5% 33.5 19,544 14.4% 19.5 12,921 14.8% 19.6 11,113 15.0% 15.9 27,056 20.5% 30.6 17,090 19.4% 24.1 8,974 10.8% 14.2 19,386 21.0% 19.4 14,909 19.8% 21.0 16,352 16.5% 16.5 11,153 22.2% 19.9 Arrival Delays at Airport Percent Minutes GDP # 27.3% 37.4 37,899 32.2% 47.0 51,876 26.9% 45.3 43,076 27.4% 42.0 23,238 26.7% 37.9 28,492 19.4% 47.1 26,616 16.3% 25.5 1,971 26.9% 38.7 27,148 20.5% 21.3 73 20.0% 28.9 3,664 22.7% 34.6 13,835 19.0% 34.2 3,099 19.9% 31.4 2,149 16.2% 25.8 273 20.5% 44.6 5,458 18.3% 39.7 53 19.8% 32.4 9,748 20.3% 23.0 974 17.4% 28.7 473 19.0% 24.4 1,584 17.3% 31.7 1,412 19.8% 36.8 4,659 21.5% 26.5 128 25.9% 40.2 192 22.3% 31.0 2,116 16.6% 22.0 976 15.4% 20.0 146 17.6% 17.5 147 20.3% 29.6 289 18.3% 23.8 25 15.0% 19.3 0 23.2% 22.1 390 20.4% 21.1 116 14.9% 18.6 374 22.2% 19.3 52
Code LGA EWR ATL JFK PHL ORD DCA SFO SAN CLT BOS IAH LAS SEA DFW LAX MSP MDW PHX BWI DTW DEN FLL MIA IAD SLC CLE PDX MCO STL HNL MEM TPA CVG PIT
Name of Airport New York LaGuardia Newark Liberty Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson New York John F. Kennedy Philadelphia International Chicago O'Hare Washington Reagan San Francisco International San Diego Lindbergh Charlotte/Douglas Int'l Boston Logan Houston Intercontinental Las Vegas McCarran Seattle-Tacoma International Dallas/Fort Worth Int'l Los Angeles International Minneapolis/St. Paul Int'l Chicago Midway Phoenix Sky Harbor Baltimore-Washington Detroit Metro Denver International Fort Lauderdale Int'l Miami International Washington Dulles Salt Lake City International Cleveland Hopkins Portland International Orlando International St. Louis Lambert Field Honolulu Int'l Memphis International Tampa International Cincinnati/N. Kentucky Int'l Pittsburgh International
Flights 47,328 59,259 123,078 49,652 53,326 74,059 21,299 44,208 17,280 43,395 34,519 46,373 33,875 23,149 61,403 43,941 37,423 18,237 33,347 20,416 34,637 58,671 20,605 34,110 29,966 22,497 13,503 13,397 26,264 17,015 12,648 21,755 15,248 14,789 11,683
GDP % 22.7% 29.4% 9.5% 13.1% 14.3% 7.1% 1.5% 16.1% 0.1% 1.7% 9.4% 1.3% 1.2% 0.2% 1.8% 0.0% 5.0% 1.0% 0.2% 1.4% 0.7% 1.6% 0.1% 0.2% 1.5% 0.7% 0.2% 0.2% 0.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.3% 0.2% 0.4% 0.1%
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Exhibit F: Correlation Matrix

High Temperatures Low Temperatures Pre-Cancellations
On-Time Arrival
Carrier Delay Minutes
Weather Delay Minutes
Airspace Delay Minutes
Weather Cancellations
Average Temperatures 0.09 0.14 0.02 0.04 -0.16 -0.16 -0.08 -0.06 -0.17 -0.04 0.01 0.01 0.00 -0.04 -0.05 0.01 0.01 0.05 -0.03 0.95 0.94 -0.62
Cancellations
Carrier Cancellations
Airspace Cancellations
On-Time Departure % On-Time Arrival % Total Flights On-Time Departures Cancellations Pre-cancellations Cancellations Post Dep. Carrier Cancels Weather Cancels Airspace Cancels Carrier Delay Minutes Carrier Delay/Flight Weather Delay Minutes Weather Delay/Flight Airspace Delay Minutes Airspace Delay/Flight Late Arriving Aircraft LAA/Flight 1 hour taxi times Maximum temperatures Minimum temperatures Average temperatures Snow present
0.92 0.92 -0.20 0.11 -0.55 -0.55 -0.32 -0.27 -0.48 -0.43 -0.53 0.00 -0.49 -0.23 -0.56 -0.18 -0.65 -0.29 -0.40 0.12 0.07 0.09 -0.20 -0.17 0.11 -0.52 -0.52 -0.34 -0.25 -0.45 -0.42 -0.51 0.00 -0.48 -0.24 -0.69 -0.24 -0.59 -0.27 -0.55 0.17 0.13 0.14 -0.27
-0.20 -0.17 0.93 0.26 0.25 0.27 0.35 0.15 0.23 0.75 -0.06 0.26 0.08 0.52 -0.13 0.50 -0.08 0.19 0.03 0.00 0.02 -0.03
0.11 0.11 0.93 0.04 0.03 0.14 0.22 -0.03 0.03 0.52 -0.07 0.04 0.02 0.29 -0.17 0.19 -0.19 0.05 0.07 0.02 0.04 -0.09
-0.55 -0.52 0.26 0.04 1.00 0.49 0.59 0.93 0.55 0.38 0.10 0.63 0.13 0.48 0.15 0.46 0.24 0.35 -0.16 -0.15 -0.16 0.21
-0.55 -0.52 0.25 0.03 1.00 0.46 0.59 0.93 0.55 0.37 0.10 0.62 0.13 0.46 0.14 0.45 0.24 0.34 -0.16 -0.15 -0.16 0.21
-0.27 -0.25 0.35 0.22 0.59 0.59 0.33 0.41 0.19 0.35 0.02 0.32 0.08 0.32 0.04 0.31 0.08 0.17 -0.07 -0.07 -0.06 0.08
-0.48 -0.45 0.15 -0.03 0.93 0.93 0.41 0.41 0.28 0.23 0.09 0.57 0.11 0.35 0.13 0.27 0.17 0.30 -0.18 -0.17 -0.17 0.24
-0.43 -0.42 0.23 0.03 0.55 0.55 0.36 0.19 0.28 0.41 0.08 0.42 0.11 0.47 0.13 0.59 0.30 0.30 -0.05 -0.03 -0.04 0.03
-0.53 -0.51 0.75 0.52 0.38 0.37 0.35 0.35 0.23 0.41 0.14 0.41 0.13 0.67 -0.03 0.72 0.10 0.36 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.05
-0.49 -0.48 0.26 0.04 0.63 0.62 0.41 0.32 0.57 0.42 0.41 0.10 0.23 0.53 0.13 0.54 0.25 0.43 -0.01 -0.01 0.00 0.10
-0.56 -0.69 0.52 0.29 0.48 0.46 0.49 0.32 0.35 0.47 0.67 0.02 0.53 0.19 0.36 0.66 0.17 0.76 -0.06 -0.05 -0.05 0.14
-0.65 -0.59 0.50 0.19 0.46 0.45 0.33 0.31 0.27 0.59 0.72 -0.01 0.54 0.11 0.66 0.02 0.31 0.37 0.00 0.02 0.01 0.01
-0.40 -0.55 0.19 0.05 0.35 0.34 0.36 0.17 0.30 0.30 0.36 0.04 0.43 0.15 0.76 0.31 0.37 0.18 -0.04 -0.03 -0.03 0.14
0.12 0.17 0.03 0.07 -0.16 -0.16 -0.08 -0.07 -0.18 -0.05 0.00 0.01 -0.01 -0.04 -0.06 0.02 0.00 0.05 -0.04 0.94 0.95 -0.63
0.07 0.13 0.00 0.02 -0.15 -0.15 -0.09 -0.07 -0.17 -0.03 0.00 0.00 -0.01 -0.04 -0.05 0.01 0.02 0.06 -0.03 0.94 0.94 -0.62
-0.20 -0.27 -0.03 -0.09 0.21 0.21 0.12 0.08 0.24 0.03 0.05 0.01 0.10 0.05 0.14 0.04 0.01 -0.02 0.14 -0.63 -0.62 -0.62
Snow or Winter Precip
Late Inbound Delay Mins
On-Time Departure %
Total Flights
One-Hour Taxi Times
On-Time Flights
Exhibit G: Schedule Padding by Average Air Time
Schedule(Padding:((By(Average(Air(Time((Not(Including(Taxi(Time)(
0' 0.0%' 100' 200' 300' 400' 500' 600'
!2.0%'
!4.0%'
!6.0%'
!8.0%'
!10.0%'
!12.0%'
Page 118
Exhibit H: Key On-Time Statistics for Airports Operating Above Worst-Case Capacity (ADR+AAR) Rates, April-September 2010
Scheduled Departures 160,698 52,507 45,072 56,181 57,824 63,147 71,662 210,671 57,316 135,329 122,047 21,069 92,738 22,674 61,664 43,687 39,950 26,579 40,814 23,428 27,860 65,641 82,714 90,690 63,923 34,445 55,555 52,709 38,988 9,497 72,414 1,999,493 On-Time Departures 124,048 43,163 37,423 41,991 48,252 53,046 55,483 166,923 45,146 105,064 97,992 18,057 76,608 18,554 50,801 31,988 33,288 19,023 34,858 17,745 24,843 52,479 64,256 76,838 55,100 25,653 43,040 46,840 32,668 7,916 61,230 1,610,316 OTD % 77.2% 82.2% 83.0% 74.7% 83.4% 84.0% 77.4% 79.2% 78.8% 77.6% 80.3% 85.7% 82.6% 81.8% 82.4% 73.2% 83.3% 71.6% 85.4% 75.7% 89.2% 79.9% 77.7% 84.7% 86.2% 74.5% 77.5% 88.9% 83.8% 83.4% 84.6% 80.5% Scheduled Arrivals 160,646 52,506 45,076 56,179 57,807 63,157 71,682 210,644 57,321 135,336 122,090 21,072 92,726 22,677 61,668 43,687 39,987 26,578 40,813 23,429 27,858 65,638 82,748 90,693 63,919 34,436 55,558 52,699 38,982 9,494 72,402 1,999,508 On-Time Arrivals 124,581 39,987 36,635 43,049 46,022 53,060 52,604 166,840 43,558 109,930 102,339 17,892 75,200 18,216 51,079 35,963 33,063 21,011 34,017 19,089 23,645 51,609 64,427 78,796 53,999 26,605 45,234 45,463 31,123 7,489 58,514 1,611,039 OTA % 77.6% 76.2% 81.3% 76.6% 79.6% 84.0% 73.4% 79.2% 76.0% 81.2% 83.8% 84.9% 81.1% 80.3% 82.8% 82.3% 82.7% 79.1% 83.3% 81.5% 84.9% 78.6% 77.9% 86.9% 84.5% 77.3% 81.4% 86.3% 79.8% 78.9% 80.8% 80.6% OAG Scheduled 400,526 165,938 184,863 160,055 149,459 210,625 148,343 427,043 165,057 292,135 286,806 37,006 234,751 68,940 126,309 84,015 121,794 47,551 71,922 42,775 71,682 185,356 205,798 177,103 127,910 133,316 108,532 129,225 122,113 26,527 202,079 4,915,554 Capacity 344,715 145,857 182,812 151,000 158,032 299,085 169,309 433,209 174,890 376,638 377,494 102,276 317,174 124,962 297,550 142,020 248,689 106,785 101,550 123,493 131,752 299,499 302,572 304,272 261,515 239,647 157,188 210,424 150,240 127,755 546,223 7,108,627 Displaced 56,799 22,262 19,701 13,442 11,818 9,380 6,299 18,098 5,451 7,919 7,748 854 5,193 1,330 2,208 1,408 1,127 416 619 310 472 1,188 1,102 793 490 403 325 271 229 39 216 197,910 % Displaced 14.2% 13.4% 10.7% 8.4% 7.9% 4.5% 4.2% 4.2% 3.3% 2.7% 2.7% 2.3% 2.2% 1.9% 1.7% 1.7% 0.9% 0.9% 0.9% 0.7% 0.7% 0.6% 0.5% 0.4% 0.4% 0.3% 0.3% 0.2% 0.2% 0.1% 0.0% 4.0%
ORD LGA PHL JFK BOS CLT SFO ATL EWR DFW DEN SNA IAH MKE MCO MDW IAD HOU SAN DAL PDX MSP DTW PHX SLC MIA BWI SEA DCA SDF Others Airport Set
Exhibit I: Key On-Time Statistics for Airports Operating Below Worst-Case Capacity (ADR+AAR) Rates, April-September 2010
Scheduled Departures 102,507 74,071 40,828 34,123 29,162 28,836 28,150 27,521 25,618 24,276 24,238 24,094 22,958 21,728 21,042 19,418 18,904 18,336 16,963 15,105 13,489 12,930 12,905 12,619 12,164 12,032 11,663 11,139 11,131 56,952 784,902 On-Time Departures 85,662 59,755 34,401 28,640 25,302 22,739 22,301 25,498 21,142 19,615 20,211 19,984 19,428 18,590 17,741 16,270 16,167 15,157 14,299 12,815 11,530 10,916 10,920 10,940 10,357 10,436 9,838 9,870 9,299 48,961 658,784 OTD % 83.6% 80.7% 84.3% 83.9% 86.8% 78.9% 79.2% 92.6% 82.5% 80.8% 83.4% 82.9% 84.6% 85.6% 84.3% 83.8% 85.5% 82.7% 84.3% 84.8% 85.5% 84.4% 84.6% 86.7% 85.1% 86.7% 84.4% 88.6% 83.5% 86.0% 83.9% Scheduled Arrivals 102,517 74,065 40,821 34,119 29,168 28,837 28,151 27,523 25,618 24,278 24,234 24,097 22,775 21,729 21,045 19,416 18,907 18,330 16,962 15,105 13,488 12,931 12,901 12,619 12,159 12,024 11,654 11,138 11,122 57,135 784,868 On-Time Arrivals 84,848 61,919 33,672 28,145 24,110 23,075 22,493 24,372 20,451 19,705 19,302 19,981 18,536 17,662 17,442 15,643 15,420 14,533 13,853 12,050 11,320 10,100 10,152 10,533 9,627 10,051 9,307 9,147 8,942 46,994 643,385 OTA % 82.8% 83.6% 82.5% 82.5% 82.7% 80.0% 79.9% 88.6% 79.8% 81.2% 79.6% 82.9% 81.4% 81.3% 82.9% 80.6% 81.6% 79.3% 81.7% 79.8% 83.9% 78.1% 78.7% 83.5% 79.2% 83.6% 79.9% 82.1% 80.4% 82.3% 82.0% OAG Scheduled 214,177 146,429 93,829 67,896 81,957 71,536 59,002 67,560 58,385 69,431 54,068 43,315 39,870 39,842 39,912 37,926 48,867 45,363 34,288 28,158 25,959 25,028 30,494 22,475 28,493 26,287 21,632 18,840 55,789 136,333 1,733,141 Capacity 324,674 240,338 317,441 185,446 174,605 229,671 224,165 231,179 132,864 333,486 154,650 176,370 190,670 129,699 119,126 149,331 324,630 142,251 130,950 150,818 134,762 110,660 178,400 130,252 137,036 126,976 162,822 94,956 185,560 848,954 6,172,742 Displaced 1 52 19 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 17 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 12 109 % Displaced 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
LAX LAS MEM TPA CLE STL BNA HNL MCI CVG RDU OAK SMF AUS SJC MSY PIT IND ABQ JAX BUR OMA BUF ONT BDL RSW PBI TUS SJU Others Airport Set
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2012 American Aviation Institute. Protected document, all rights reserved.

Joshua Marks, Executive Director

Michael Miller, Vice President, Strategy

February 16, 2012

2012 American Aviation Institute. Protected document, all rights reserved.

February 16, 2012 Page 1

2012 American Aviation Institute. Protected document, all rights reserved.

February 16, 2012 Page 1

2012 American Aviation Institute. Protected document, all rights reserved.

SECTION ONE: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Section One: Executive Summary

2012 American Aviation Institute. Protected document, all rights reserved.

Section One: Executive Summary

2012 American Aviation Institute. Protected document, all rights reserved.

Section Two: Key Findings and Prior Work

Section Two: Key Findings and Prior Work

Section Two: Key Findings and Prior Work

Section Two: Key Findings and Prior Work

time rates set by the FAA.

We point to airspace capacity improvements

Author Rupp 2005

Methods Nested Logit Model

Hansen and Zhang 2005

Hansen and Zhang 2005

Two-stage leastsquares model with GARCH model

Chatterji and Sridhar 2005

Section Two: Key Findings and Prior Work

Author Callaham 2001

Idirs et al. 2002

February 16, 2012 Page 11

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

Red Line - Total Flight Operations per Month

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

-0.35 -0.48 -0.58 -0.43

Departure Time Window! (Local Time at Departure Airport)!

February 16, 2012 Page 21

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

February 16, 2012 Page 23

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

Late Inbound 24,918,286 39%

Airspace 16,229,380 26%

Carrier 19,217,505 30%

February 16, 2012 Page 27

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

In addition, weather delays are

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

February 16, 2012 Page 29

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

Distance of Flight (miles)!

Major Hub Exposure

Section Three: Flight Level Delay Trends

Stateofusaviation Comprehensive Analysis of Airline Schedules & Airport Delay

Stateofusaviation Comprehensive Analysis of Airline Schedules & Airport Delay