The padding is push-back/taxi time. If you look at a schedule with similiar aircraft flying a route ORD-DEN, SFO-LAX you will see that at peak travel times it will differ by sometimes 5-10 mins. This is due to additional ground congestion and speed restrictions en route.

Example: ORD-DEN, 757 equip
UA#259 = 2:36
UA#271 = 2:38
UA#959 = 2:23

I once listed to channel 9 and heard an upset 747 pilot complaining about being stuck behind a company 757, both going ORD-DEN, since he was restricted to mach 0.80. Due to T-storms they could not get around, and most other altitudes were very turbulent. I was on the 757, so I had no problems with it.

Lastly if you go to a site like travelocity.com you can lookup a flight and check the time there, the flights time that are usually listed on the map below are the ATC times, so that will give you a better estimate. Of course the site will not give that data until a couple of hours before scheduled flight time.


[This message has been edited by ncorman (edited 06-23-2002).]