Originally Posted by
s0ssos
I would actual prefer airlines say actual flying time, because there is really no way to account for delays. There are many significant delays, and they measure in hours. How do you split that up into numbers for every day, when they don't happen every day on the same flight? Do you take, say 3 hours that happens once a week and divide it by 7 and add it?
How do you account for ATC, airport congestion? The past isn't a good predictor, as some airports just get busier and busier (like Newark. There was a good article about how it was a sleepy airport back in the day, now is massively overloaded)-forget where it was.
What is more important to know the wheels up to wheels down time, or the door close to door open time?
You would rather have individuals who may not travel much at all decide what a sensible connection time is instead of the airlines who are sitting on mountains of past data and future projections?
Airlines know what the peak times are and if there is likely to be a line to take off. A flight taking off from LGA at 3pm needs a far larger block time than a flight taking of at 6am. Is it perfect, not at all, but it's still better than telling me it's going to take 1.5 hours in the air but the journey takes 2+ hours when you account for normal taxi time, and highly probably waiting on the tarmac for a take off slot.