I was looking up JFK-SFO schedules and noticed that some of the flights have an estimated flight time of nearly 7 hours. Needless to say, almost all of them arrive well before that.

Case in point, UA 7 dep JFK 8:15am, arr SFO 12:02pm. And sure enough, the flight arrives at least 45 minutes earlier.

I understand jetstream, yadda yadda can change on a daily (hourly) basis, but I couldn't help but wonder if UA was doing this to improve their stats? Maybe I'm a closet conspiracy theorist, but just saying ...

Bingo -- it's to keep on-time stats up there. Other airlines have started it doing it, too.

Improve their on time stats, and also allow people to plan their scheduled with greater confidence/a lessened chance that they will have to be altered due to a late arrival.

JFK-SFO in September. We departed 45 minutes late, due to ATC.. Landed at SFO an hour early!

scheduling padding?? nothing new (and not unique to UA)
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...010-stats.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ing-field.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ic-flight.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...me-2009-a.html

I hadn't looked at it in that kind of positive light. Suppose it's valid.

One negative effect is that this practice impacts the connections you are legally able to book. And this can lead to some very long layover times if you are unsuccessful in standing by for an earlier connection after you land significantly earlier than your scheduled time. There are, to be sure, worse things to contend with than an early arrival! But at the end of the day, these heavily padded schedules are just another example of UA marketing sacrificing service for sound bytes.

On the bright side, they do appear to have dropped that "We're No. 1" nonsense marketing campaign. Or have I just mentally filtered it out?

Schedule padding can be a double edged sword, pad too much and you will reduce your utilization of your planes. In my transcon trips westbound, I usually assume 7 hours for the flight anyways. 1 hour every 500 miles plus 1 hour westbound, minus 1 hour eastbound

Most likely utilization reduction is by design. When airframes were few and capacity was stressed (summer with good economy) it is in an airline's best interests to maximize utilization. Over the past few years, capacity has been reduced to better line up with demand. Part of this was done by retiring airframes, but part was done by eliminating "utilization flying", or flying and extra segment because you had a plane, even if demand wasn't there. When fuel is cheap, utilization flying can be profitable, but when fuel costs creep up, the incremental revenue of flying a 1/2 empty plane most likely doesn't cover non-fixed costs.

The (2) options to do with the airframe are a) park it, and increase ground time, or b) increase block time. Both options increase schedule and aircraft reliability.

too i would imagine.

This comes in very handy if there are any irrops (ATC, weather etc.). I have been on several CO flights in the past where there are minimal schedule padding and a 20 minute delay in departure usually results in a 10-15 minute delay in arrival (not much, but when your departing gate is at the other end of IAH, it's a difference between walking and sprinting).

Plus, IMO general fliers usually appreciates that "We're early" announcements instead of "We're late 5 minutes" and they don't know how much UA pads its schedule.

Especially out of JFK, it seems like having some thunderstorm/ATC buffer time is a really good idea.

Believe the top two customer dissatisfiers for air travel are
-- schedule issues
-- auxiliary fees

Across the board for the industry, schedule padding has significant improved the performance to a top dissatisfier. Believe most of the traveling public would veiw the present situation as a positive.

This was also discussed in the WSJ a year ago:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...789789222.html

And as FT experiences and the literature show, it isn't limited to UA. Please follow the thread in the TravelBuzz forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator.