Originally Posted by
OhDoctor
Certainly they're not taking winds into account six months in advance.
But, in the context of just overall historic data, I guess it makes sense. It just seems like such an outsized difference for such a short flight. By comparison, if you extend the same difference out to a longer transcon flight, it would be like one flight booked at 5 hours and the next at 5h45.
DOT asks airlines to adjust their published flight times if specific flights are consistently late. While all the above factors are considered to some extent, I think the airport tarmac traffic and takeoff/landing waits are the most significant (and the most variable at different times of day). So if 8am flights are padded an extra 15 minutes to account for increased tarmac traffic at that hour, a similar amount is added to all 8am departures. A transcon would also increase by 15 minutes, not 15 percent of its duration. Therefore, it is much more noticeable on short flights.