Hello -

I've noticed that many airlines do not post the true status of a flight until the very last minute - e.g. a flight from IAD-LAX that is meant to depart at 6:00pm but that will not actually depart until 9:00pm, because the aircraft is arriving from LAX three hours late.

They will know that the flight will be late, of course, before the aircraft leaves LAX to begin with, but they won't post this until 30 min before the flight from IAD is due to depart. So passengers who arrive on time are stuck in the airport for three extra hours, when they could have simply left for the airport later.

Whay do airlines do this, and more importantly, is there a website where one can find the REAL status of a flight as soon as it's known? Any info would be much appreciated!

flightstats isn't bad... but typically the airline doesn't know that far ahead. CO has the nice "where is this aircraft coming from" feature that often gives you a decent idea of cascading delays - but sometimes they substitute equipment at the last minute which may avoid or aggravate the delay for any one flight. The site also lacks the "where is the crew coming from" button.

Net: until you arrive at your destination, there is always some uncertainty.

While it may be likely the flight is not leaving for three hours, there could be a possibility of an aircraft swap, favorable winds, weather clearing or other factor that turns it to a shorter delay. This is especially likely at a hub where they have more options. With a rolling delay they are going to want to keep you in the gate area to board asap when possible.

Any time I have had a 100% certain delay it was known many hours in advance. This includes a two hour delay posted the night before (crew rest requirement with a late arriving flight at an outstation) along with a mechanical that required flying in a mechanic/parts on the first inbound of the day. This is typically the case on the first flight of the day from an outstation. The "stuff happens" unexpected delays are much more variable.

I agree with mbreuer- you still need to get to the airport on time. I always check the Arrivals Board for my gate to see what's coming in and whether it's on time. It's usually a good indicator but there are exceptions. Once, when they posted an inbound at time X and an outbound at X + 15 minutes from the same gate I asked the gate agent. It was a dark and stormy night in EWR, all heck had broken loose and she told me they were making decisions as planes came in as to where they'd go next. It was an honest "we don't know" and I appreciated it.

Second case- leaving MCI to fly to EWR and then to DEL. I had a 3- hour layover in EWR but my flight to EWR was at one point posted 4 hours late. I was on the phone with the travel agent considering alternate bookings when my husband reported that my flight was now "only" 2 hours late. Sure enough, it was. This was also a bad weather day (snowstorm)and I suspect CO didn't want to have to deal with a bunch of misconnect passengers in EWR for international flights so they took another inbound and put us on it. Anyone who left the airport to get dinner and didn't watch their flight status would have been out of luck.