{"id":7888,"date":"2005-07-28T20:17:33","date_gmt":"2005-07-29T03:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2005\/07\/28\/holding-pattern.html"},"modified":"2005-07-28T20:17:33","modified_gmt":"2005-07-29T03:17:33","slug":"holding_pattern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/07\/28\/holding_pattern.html","title":{"rendered":"Holding pattern"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s one near and dear to my heart: why are air traffic delays so bad at places like O’Hare?<\/a> <\/p>\n

The answer? The big “hub” airlines do it intentionally, knowing that folks will only bitch about delays, but will seek alternatives if they’re forced to schedule long layovers.<\/p>\n

American Airlines, for example, uses O’Hare as a hub and schedules a cluster of flights to arrive there from the east in the earlier afternoon. Another cluster leaves for points west and south soon after. In the 30-minute period between 2:45 p.m. and 3:15 p.m., American has scheduled about 18 takeoffs, not counting its regional flights. That comes close to maxing out the airport’s capacity, without any other airline. Other airports are even more extreme. Continental has seven flights scheduled to depart during the exact same minute (11:45 a.m.) out of Newark, as well as almost 20 other flights in the surrounding half hour. Some of these flights leave late more than 80 percent of the time. The major airlines know perfectly well that these hideous statistics are inevitable.<\/p>\n

To cut down on delays, all Continental and American need to do at Newark and O’Hare respectively is to spread flights throughout the day. Continental does just that at O’Hare, because that airport isn’t its hub. Without many connecting passengers to worry about, the airline studiously avoids the congested departure periods. But the hub carriers would lose passengers and money if they did this. Spreading out flights would leave some connecting passengers with long layovers, and everyone in the travel business knows that people won’t pay as much for those tickets. Most people have a hard time figuring out which flights are leaving at overscheduled times, so they tend to avoid tickets that already have long delays built into them.<\/p>\n

None of the suggestions offered for air travellers is very good, either, alas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s one near and dear to my heart: why are air traffic delays so bad at places like O’Hare? The answer? The big “hub” airlines do it intentionally, knowing that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6678,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/08\/05\/ripped_from_the.html","url_meta":{"origin":7888,"position":0},"title":"Ripped from the headlines","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 5-Aug-04 6:42am","format":false,"excerpt":"After Tuesday's little soiree at O'Hare, I was amused to read this article abou how the FAA wants airlines to cut back flights there. Really. And they're being very good...","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12530,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/01\/terminal_schadenfreude.html","url_meta":{"origin":7888,"position":1},"title":"Terminal Schadenfreude","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 1-Apr-08 12:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Say what you will about the massive cost overruns, problematic baggage system, and multiple delayed openings at Denver International Airport\u00a0-- it seems that having delays in that triple threat may...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3882,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/18\/blizzard.html","url_meta":{"origin":7888,"position":2},"title":"Blizzard","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 18-Mar-03 4:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Cool. We're under a blizzard warning. Another 3-6\" this evening, anodhter 5-10\" overnight, another 3-6\" tomorrow. Yeesh. United, Frontier and American have cancelled all their flights today (though some planes...","rel":"","context":"In "Weather (mine)"","block_context":{"text":"Weather (mine)","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/weather-and-seasons"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":23781,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/16\/stuck-on-the-tarmac-or-stuck-at-the-airport.html","url_meta":{"origin":7888,"position":3},"title":"Stuck on the tarmac, or stuck at the airport?","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 16-Nov-11 10:23am","format":false,"excerpt":"Two issues in this article. First, are fines on airlines that leave folks stuck in their planes out on the tarmac leading air carriers to cancel more flights? It seems that way, as cases of bad tarmac incidents are way down, but cancellations are up.But, honestly, I think that's the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6405,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/09\/07\/can_you_hear_me.html","url_meta":{"origin":7888,"position":4},"title":"Can you hear me now?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 7-Sep-04 9:12pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The FCC, the FAA, airlines and technology companies are working to make cellphones work safely on airline flights. But as problematic as the technical issues are the social ones. During...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1555,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/12\/12\/hear_the_mighty.html","url_meta":{"origin":7888,"position":5},"title":"Hear the mighty engines roar","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 12-Dec-01 9:17am","format":false,"excerpt":"When we moved into our house, we knew that Centennial Airport was just a few miles away. A small, private airport, there are still the occasional private\/business\/charter jets that take...","rel":"","context":"In "Personal"","block_context":{"text":"Personal","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}