Travelers, be prepared for more flight delays

NEWARK, N.J. — In all, more than 100 domestic flights are officially late — by at least 15 minutes — 70 percent or more of the time.

And most of those arrive, on average, more than an hour later than scheduled, the Transportation Department found in an analysis of a year of flights. (A full year's data smooths out the effect of seasonal miseries caused by summer thunderstorms and winter snow.)

Fliers might expect some short-term relief, as a summer marked by widespread flight cancellations and delays, and the most crowded planes in the history of jet travel, comes to an end.

But the long-term outlook is not good, and travelers should brace themselves for a growing number of chronically late planes.

The reasons include an overtaxed air traffic control system that is probably at least a decade away from being replaced, and a handful of big hub airports that at times are operating above their practical capacity.

Airlines, to save money, compressed their schedules in recent years — often planning departures with 30 minutes or less on the ground between flights. That makes it next to impossible to catch up for the day, once a plane hopping from city to city falls behind.

Newark Airport has more than half of the chronically late flights. Its operations are particularly vulnerable to weather problems, said Leo Prusak, the New York district manager for the Federal Aviation Administration, who also oversees Kennedy and La Guardia airports.

Continental Airlines has more than one-third of the chronically late flights on the Transportation Department's list.

Travel experts repeatedly urge fliers to book trips in the morning to minimize the risk of delays.

Some business travelers plan their schedules defensively, with the help of Web sites like Flight-Aware or FlightStats.com.

FlightAware offers daily arrival times going back four months. FlightStats provides flight ratings (American 1659, unsurprisingly, received a "very poor" rating because of its many late arrivals and cancellations).

US Airways is also struggling with delays at Newark, and is trying to get its flights to and from Charlotte, N.C., a major hub, off the chronically late list.

W. Douglas Parker, US Airways' chief executive, said many delays could be avoided if airlines did not crowd flight departures around peak hours. But the first carrier to retreat from those popular departure times, he said, would be hurt in the marketplace, as passengers continued to book at the most-desired hours — on other airlines.

In April, the Transportation Department said it was investigating domestic airlines for publishing unrealistic schedules. It said it was considering levying fines on as many as eight carriers.