Originally Posted by
tomvancouver
. So that got me thinking, rather than have the knock on effects (and costs) of a delay, why cannot AC just fly their plane a few % faster?
Depends on where they are flying. The evening transatlantic tracks are very busy, and all the planes fly at the same speed with fairly minimal separation. Think of a busy highway with the lanes full and everyone moving at the same speed. If you want to drive 30 km/h faster than everyone else it's not practical to do so.