The REAL source of the problem isn't hub and spoke systems. It's an outdated and under-resourced ATC system, run by the FAA.

Now I'll let the rest of you start moaning about "Yeah, my flight with JetBlue was delayed by 3 minutes and that's why I hate JetBlue"

I fly about four times a year for business, and this year all four of my flights (three domestic, one international) left Philly on time. I can't recall the last year when that happened. From 2000 to 2005, I routinely scheduled an extra three hours into my travel plans, since it seemed flights were often that late in leaving.

None of my flights have ever been delayed for more than ten minutes. Guess I'm lucky.

Does anyone have any idea what the hell I can do in LAX for six hours? That's gonna be my layover time :-(

Seems to me it just has to do with how these stats are determined, the plane is "on time" if it arrives before the time printed on the ticket. I have flown JetBlue for a long time and I have noticed a significant increase in the flight time as listed on the ticket. They tack on an extra 45+ minutes onto the flight time of the JFK to Florida (Ft Myers) trip that I happen to take a lot, it is only about 2:15 minutes of flight time but they list it as around 3 hours, last time I went down the plane was a full 45 minutes early and on the way up the airport was closed for hours before we left (weather at Florida and New York), we ended up leaving about 30 minutes late (right when the airport opened), and back in New York the plane missed the landing about 5 times due to fog and we still landed 5 minutes before the time on the ticket.

So I happen to think they are just changing the numbers on the tickets, they found out that their "on time" numbers are important and they can push back the expected arrival time as far as they want and it boosts their numbers.

Our current air traffic control system is a joke and desperately needs to be upgraded. It's literally running on 60/70's technology. That doesn't help matters at all. If it was up to date, then we could get more utility out of the existing infrastructure (which also needs to be improved).

Short haul flights are clogging airports like LA, SFO, Chicago and others, go you end up with a ripple affect all over the country when one major airport hits a snag. Many airports like Dallas and Atlanta are already beyond capacity even in good weather because of this.

We just traveled round trip from WA to ME, and not a single one of our 7 flights departed on time. None of the delays were caused by weather. The second flight left after it was supposed to arrive, making a 9 hour trip into a 22 hour ordeal after they rearranged our flights. On the 5th flight they gave someone else our assigned seats, treated us like it was our fault, and put us in separate seats.

But hey, on the way back, we were able to run and make two flights. The airlines are just looking out for our health.

As an Air Traffic Controller i can tell you the problem is not we are running out of space in the sky. There is plenty of that, the problem is not having enough runways. The "nextgen" system is suppose to reduce the amount of separation needed in flight but that is already very small. Only 1000 feet vertically and a minimum of 3 to 5 miles laterally if they are the same altitude. This changes depending if wake turbulence applies or their distance from the radar site and if there is more than one radar is use, and what their altitude is, but it works very well and i wouldn't want it to be less. 3 miles with a 500-1000 knot closure rate is not much room at all and 1000 feet vertically is pretty darn close when were talking about machines with hundreds of people on board.

What we need is more asphalt to put planes on, only one plane can be on it at a time and if its a larger plane then you have to wait for the wake turbulence to dissipate before the next one can go.

@BabyFirefly: IN LAX? Nothing. For as large as LAX is, there's not much in the airport, and even less on certain terminals. LAX itself is not that far from some nicer stuff, depending on what you like, (e.g., a mall, the beach, etc) you could leave, get a taxi to & fro, but 6 hr in the airport...not much. Unless you bring a laptop and some dvds or a book.

Better regional train networks would help. I live in a small midwestern city and our airport has tons of smaller planes flying to Chicago every day - one at least every two hours on both United and American. Most of those people are changing planes to fly elsewhere.

I used to live in Germany and people who live a similar distance from a big airport - Frankfurt, Munich or even Amsterdam - would just hop on a train that lets them off right at the airport saving space in the sky and on the runways and gates. Here we have no such options.

@Bruce Bayliss: Well, splitting an airline's "hub" operations across a few airports that aren't so crowded ATC-wise would help too. For example, Chicago is overcrowded because it's both UA and AA's hub, but if AA would move some operations back to the old TWA hub that would relieve a lot of the ATC stress.

I think a lot of delays are to blame on the airport rather than the airline. Runway backups are frequently to blame. All my delays out of LGA and JFK have been due to runway issues or backups.

But then the little American Eagle flights out to visit Mom, the little connecting flights, have been late for years due to mechanical issues every time I go to visit her. Never fails. Of course I'd rather sit and wait than have them fly with a suspected mechanical problem, it doesn't give me too much confidence in the airlines that for years it's been the same reason for delays.

One time we took off on the little American Eagle, and the plane started making a horrible crunching and clanking noise. We turned around and landed, and waited 2 hours for them to fix the plane, and got up in the same one again. Did NOT instill confidence! I held my breath almost the entire flight.

But when your relatives retire out in the sticks to save money, you don't have many travel choices. :-)

@edman007: On the other hand, it means that people are aware in advance the amount of time it's going to take and plan accordingly. It's unfortunate that it takes longer, but the real complaint has been that we're not told the truth in the first place.

@AlphaLima: But much like our asphalt highways, if you build more of them, then more cars / trucks start driving on them. And pretty soon, you're back at the congestion point. And building more runways is going to run smack into NIMBYism. And that supposes that there is actual land available to build 'em.

Maybe a better approach to the problem would be for airlines to not schedule so many flights for a given time slot at an airport, because, as you have already pointed out, only one plane is allowed on a runway at time. And we know what happens when 2 are on it at the same time Tenerife: [en.wikipedia.org]

@subtlefrog: :-( Supposedly the airline I'm taking to my next flight has some sort of lounge thing, but I don't know if it's only for first/business class.

I'll have to pack a library with me.

Well I guess they have the data to back up their report, but that is not my experience at all with air travel in the past year. I agree with edman007 that they seem to be padding the travel time in order to look like they're on time. Also the definition of late seems to be quite malleable - an on-time departure 20 minutes after the published time doesn't appear to mean late anymore.

@jenjen: IIRC, the margin of error is 15 minutes. Or did they change that recently. Push off within 15 minutes and you're on time. Land at the gate within the same time-frame and you have an on-time arrival.

I don't mind the padding (for schedules, that is; I'm already padded enough around the mid-section), as it allows for better timing of layovers, assuming one's flight is not non-stop. I think people don't mind an early arrival at the gate. But one's planning might get thrown awry if that arrival is 20 minutes passed the scheduled arrival time.

Of course, all the scheduling snafus really cause problems when it comes time to pick up a rental car. One thinks, ok, we land at 2:12pm, take 30 minutes to get luggage, wait 15 minutes to get to rental counter, that makes it 2:57 we get to the counter. So we tell 'em to reserve a car for a 3pm pick-up. But some delays kick in somewhere and while you might push-back and have wheels-up pretty much on time, you circle the destination airport because of some newly developed problem there and you can't land (or call the rental company) and now you land at 3:30 and when you call you find out they gave away your car and you're SOL (at least until you use your good Consumerist skills at arranging for a replacement vehicle). So if they pad the schedule for a 2:45 arrival, maybe the delay doesn't cause you to land too late and you're ontime for your car pickup?

I loathe the rule that says they get to count the flight as on-time if they back away from the gate within 15 mins of scheduled flight time. We back up a few feet and then we sit there. And why is it that the domino affect never applies to my connecting flights? I book my connections 3 hours apart in hopes that when my first leg is late, and it will be, I should still make my connecting flight. And sometimes that hasn't even helped. I was still either running through ATL or just didn't make it. I did learn that you can dodge and weave while dragging a rolling laptop case behind you and not take out innocent bystanders. I also learned that it is faster to hoof it than take the tram half the time.

@BabyFirefly:

One of the parking lot companies, The Parking Spot, owns a garage right next to the In-n-Out by the airport. You can ride the Red shuttle to the Sepulveda location, and walk to the burger shop. If they ask, tell them you left your self-park ticket in the car.

Eat Double-Doubles, watch planes land at the airport, have a jolly good time.

@BabyFirefly: Depends which terminal you're in. 99% of the time I am in Terminal Four. If you're in that terminal, you will have absolutely nothing to do. There is an American Airlines lounge, about four/five places to eat (one of which is a ripoff) and one or two gift shops. Very small place. Best bet is to pack a couple of good books or visit one of the bars and strike up a conversation. As odd as this sounds, I've met some really cool people on the plane or at an airport bar.

hwyengr mentions a good tip with In-n-Out; lots of people do this. Tip the guy a buck or two for this.

Responding to your first point.. yes, you're lucky. Every flight from LAX this year that I have been on has been at least 20 minutes late leaving the gate. However, thanks to the winds, I've been able to get back to the east coast a little early or on time.

This may be an aberration, but the last flight I was on left on time and arrived at the destination almost an hour early. The flight was still 11.5 hours long. Gotta' love flying with the jet-stream as a tail wind.

@BabyFirefly: Go to In-N-Out burger with a good book.

To get back to the airport, either take the Parking Spot van or take a nice stroll to one of the dozens of nearby hotels and take the blue Super Shuttle.

@TWinter:

This!

Living in England and traveling in Europe makes me appreaciate rail and coach so much more. I would rather spend 4 hours on a train than 4 hours in an airport ANY DAY!

@QADude: Wouldn't the bright idea, then, be to make rail a viable replacement for short-haul trips?

@AlphaLima: Sometimes the runway space is there; it's just the stupid hub/spoke system that's getting in the way. Give an incentive for more airlines to operate on a point-to-point basis (or have more than one hub to ease congestion) and then you'll see loads spread out more evenly.

@jamar0303:
If you split a hub, then it's not a hub.
Do the research, understand what you're talking about, then comment.

On time arrival has improved, but there are still two kinds of luggage: carry-on or lost.

We returned yesterday from a week long trip which required connections in both directions. Naturally, the airline charged us to check our bags, which we had to do because our they contained more than three ounces of liquids. Predictably, for our money our bags were taken on tour without us. When we reached our final destination in each direction our bags were somewhere else.

@jamar0303: Hell, LONG haul as well.
I hate flying (especially with all this security theatre).
I'd much rather spend a day on a train from Atlanta to NYC, or 2 days over to San Fran, than fly (living in the UK, and working in San Fran really has you hating flying)

@GadgetsAlwaysFit: The next stop, is concourse SLOW, Concourse SLOW. Warning, these doors are closing, and do not reopen...

Yeah, hate the tram. When I had to change, I always ran. Now I live here, I refuse to fly these days.

@GadgetsAlwaysFit: Had to do that recently in Miami. Flight arrived over 2 hours late, due to mechanical problems delaying its arrival at my origin. By dint of begging passengers to let me by, and dashing between gates (not very far, fortunately), I arrived at the departure gate right at the scheduled departure time. You can imagine my disbelief at finding the plane already gone -- it had pulled back so early you couldn't even see it in the vicinity any more!

@ktetch: maybe they can put in an undersea train line for you too! ;)

@West Coast Secessionist: I don't travel to the UK too much nowadays. Passenger rail might be ncie though. I've a train line at the end of my road, trains run from Athens down to Macon, and also to Atlanta. Passengers though - forget it.

Rail isn't so hard, was managed fine 150 years ago...

Hah! Just last Friday I flew from SFO to LAX, and my plane left 45 minutes late... long enough for me and about a dozen others to miss connecting flights out of LAX.

@Bruce Bayliss: Or maybe you should try to wrap your head around the concept of having multiple "focus cities" instead of one hub, like certain airlines in other parts of the world do (like how the Japanese airlines have plenty of int'l departures from Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka instead of forcing everyone out of Tokyo). Push some flights out to another city, and then there's less burden on the ATC staff at the current "hub" airports.