Data Reveal an Airline Flight Pattern: Excessive Delays

Leaving Las Vegas wasn’t so easy last year if you wanted to arrive in Reno before dinner. Southwest Airlines’ one-hour afternoon flight between the two gambling meccas was late more than 60% of the time in 2000, the worst on-time performance of any regularly scheduled trip.

Flights on 19 other routes also arrived late at least half of the time last year, Bureau of Transportation Statistics records show.

Southwest’s 2:40 p.m. flight out of Las Vegas arrived in Reno at least 15 minutes behind schedule 60.4% of the time in 2000. The average delay was 22.6 minutes.

Southwest’s 4:15 p.m. Reno-to-Las Vegas flight was almost as big a gamble; it arrived at least 15 minutes late 58.5% of the time last year.

Southwest officials said they have adjusted flight schedules.

At the request of Associated Press, the bureau analyzed its flight data from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 to find the 20 flights most often late. Southwest and American Airlines each accounted for six of the 20 latest flights. Three American flights arrived at least 40 minutes late on average. Five other regularly late flights were flown by United Airlines. All of American’s and United’s latest flights took off or landed at New York’s LaGuardia Airport or Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.

Thirteen of the latest flights landed at or took off from the overcrowded LaGuardia. Nine flights arrived at or left O’Hare. LaGuardia had more delayed flights than any other airport, with O’Hare second, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

An airline expert blamed the airlines for trying to squeeze in too many flights at peak travel times, and the FAA for letting it happen.

“Airlines schedule too many flights to take off and land,” said Dean Headley, associate professor of marketing at Wichita State University and co-author of an annual study of airline quality.