MYTH: Flight Delays Are Due to Weather

May 12, 2006 — -- The delayed flight destroys vacations and wrecks business trips.

Almost a quarter of all flights are late these days. Some, like Continental's evening flight -- Newark, N.J., to Boston -- are late about 70 percent of the time.

And almost always, when flights are delayed, we're told, it's the weather, according to Jim May, an airlines' spokesman.

"The FAA data is perfectly accurate, and 70 percent of the delays are weather," he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration told us that 70 percent of air traffic delays were caused by weather. When you add in delays under the control of the airlines -- like overscheduling, equipment trouble or late-arriving crews -- the Bureau of Transportation Statistics says there are many more nonweather delays than weather delays.

"The explanation of weather just isn't true," said Columbia University economist Chris Mayer, who has studied 12 years of flight-delay data. "When two-thirds of the days you're delayed, you can't say that it's bad weather."

Mayer says the airlines deserve the blame.

"The airlines choose their schedules," he said.

At many airports, the takeoff lines are long even in good weather. That's why you often circle so long before landing even when there are no storms in the area.

"What the airlines need to do is space their flights out more during the course of the day," Mayer said.

Spreading out flights, Mayer says, would mean airlines would have to pay more overtime to pilots and flight attendants.

"They would have three flight attendants and two pilots sitting on the ground waiting, as opposed to the passengers waiting," Mayer said. "Well, there are 150 passengers."

The easy fix, Mayer says, is spacing out the flights.

"And we're telling you that we are spacing our flights out to the extent we can, but we also have to meet consumer demand," May said for the airlines.

People tend to want to fly out at 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. May adds that if a passenger wants to avoid delays, he or she can find out which flights are usually late.