Originally Posted by
HA/UA_Flyer
I think it is just padding because of the strong winds from the winter weather. Not a problem for the bigger jets that have the fuel capacity, but slows things down nonetheless.
I heard thru the avgeek grapevines that it's both block time adjustments/padding and also potentially a new Cost Index for the aircraft(for the non-avgeek types that don't know-cost index goes in the flight computers and gives the aircraft it's speed/fuel economy for a given # with a CI of 0 being super efficient and a CI of 100 being Max Speed) which in this case would slow the aircraft down in the cruise. In my search for a link, I found this cool thread about EK's cost index of 400!!!! http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/358596/
Talk about burning fuel!