Originally Posted by
emcampbe
Correct that when flow is reduced, carriers get to choose which flights to cancel. However, Porter also used to specifically advertise that they were able to use a runway that most other aircraft can't at EWR because of the fact they fly Q400s with a capacity less than some others (not sure if that applies to the UAX Q400s, or how many seats they have compared to Porter). The idea being that when there's a backup of flights waiting for takeoff at EWR, their flights could skip a line because of this. Of course, if the congested NYC airspace is still the problem, that probably didn't help much.
You have it right. Even with the congestion props and jets use different routings with the props running lower altitudes that jets would burn too much fuel at, and have different STARS. Props will also run tower enroute to avoid the center congestion, it is why I talk to Porter cutting across my airspace.
Regardless of type aircraft the biggest factor in delays is distance from the two points, as you get closer the number of and the size of the overhead gaps decrease.