Impossible to tell general trends from my own anecdotal experiences, but I've had a string of slightly delayed flights recently. 15 and 20 minute delays that are announced right when boarding was originally supposed to begin, and then rather than making up the time in flight (aka using the padding) we end up having to sit on the tarmac waiting for a gate on the other end and deplaning about 45 minutes late. While it's not a huge delay, psychologically these really suck as you have a big crowd already lined up at the gate beforehand and then once you've landed, you're there, but you can't leave and get on with your day, you have to just sit there for who knows how long. So yeah, if there is this great trend in operational success I'm not getting a piece of it, I'm just finding things a bit more annoying than usual.