American Airlines is trying to improve the financial mess that it’s in (at least in comparison to Delta and United), and management at the airline realizes that this requires focusing on the customer. This includes everything from investing in better business class seats, to serving better champagne, to sometimes holding flights for passengers running late.
Ultimately the one thing that matters most to customers is operational reliability. And along those lines, American has just announced what I’d consider to be a very positive development concerning that.
In this post:
American is padding flight schedules to improve reliability
American has announced a variety of initiatives intended to improve operational reliability at Dallas Fort Worth (DFW), which is the carrier’s biggest hub. For example, flights are “banked,” meaning that they all arrive and depart around the same time, in order to make connections as efficient as possible.
For more than a decade, American has had nine daily banks at DFW, while starting in April 2026, the airline will increase that to 13 daily banks. So that will not only reduce peak crowding, but it’ll also give customers more options as to how long of a connection they want. Instead of the option of a one hour connection or four hour connection, maybe you’ll now have the option of a two or three hour connection.
I’d argue that the most interesting change that American has announced is that the airline also plans to increase block times for flights across its network, essentially increasing schedule padding. Here’s how the airline describes this:
American is making a bold and unprecedented investment in block time for flights to and from DFW and across the airline’s network. Block time — the total scheduled time between pushback from the departure gate to arrival at the destination gate — determines how long a customer’s trip feels.
With this investment in American’s customers, the airline is ensuring more on-time departures that lead to more on-time arrivals and fewer delays, all creating an overall smoother and improved travel experience. In short, American is bolstering its ability to get its customers and their bags where they’re going and on time.
Are increased block times at American a good thing?
Many of us joke that when airlines pad their schedules, they’re really just trying to improve their on-time statistics with the Department of Transportation (DOT), since that data compare the actual arrival time to the scheduled arrival time. Obviously the more time you schedule for a flight, the better your odds of the flight being on-time.
While we don’t know exactly how much American plans to pad its schedule, there’s also no denying that this is a huge financial investment. For one, aircraft utilization is reduced when each flight takes longer, since you can’t operate as many flights in a day. Furthermore, crews have to be paid based on the longer block time, so this will lead to increased labor costs.
At the same time, I’d say this is absolutely positive for customers. If you simply put a little more slack into the operation, odds are much better that things will run smoothly. Flights are more likely to arrive on-time or even early, so it reduces odds of having to wait for a gate to open up. It also increases the chances that passengers and bags make their connections.
The fundamental issue here is that airlines create minimum connection times that are unrealistically short, and which truly only work under the best of circumstances. The reason they have these short minimum connection times is because they want to be able to schedule as many flights as possible, and when passengers shop for flights, they also want total travel time to be as short as possible, since that’s appealing to people.
But at DFW, for example, the minimum connection time is 50 minutes. Imagine that you’re seated in the back of the plane, that you have to change terminals, and that you still have to be at your connecting flight at least 20 minutes before departure. That can be challenging even if everything goes right, but if there’s even a tiny delay, you’re often screwed.
So as far as I’m concerned, anything that makes it more realistic for passengers to make their connections is a good thing.
Bottom line
In the coming months, American will be increasing its block time for flights, meaning there will be some extra padding in flight schedules. While I’m not generally a fan of airlines overly padding their schedules, this seems like a good move for American, given how the airline has struggled with reliability, at least compared to Delta.
Putting a little bit of extra slack in the schedule should help more passengers make connections. I’m happy to see that American is actually focused on improving the connecting experience, given that it’s primarily one huge, domestic airline.
What do you make of American increasing schedule padding?
I generally try to avoid American, but they offer flights from Palm Springs to Florida that arrive late afternoon - rather than United's typical 11:00 PM-ish arrivals. I departed Ft Myers for Palm Springs Saturday evening, 27 December via Phoenix and, apparently due to weather conditions in the northeast, my flight was late by about an hour, resulting in my missing the last flight of the day out of Phoenix. I was told that, because...
I generally try to avoid American, but they offer flights from Palm Springs to Florida that arrive late afternoon - rather than United's typical 11:00 PM-ish arrivals. I departed Ft Myers for Palm Springs Saturday evening, 27 December via Phoenix and, apparently due to weather conditions in the northeast, my flight was late by about an hour, resulting in my missing the last flight of the day out of Phoenix. I was told that, because the delay was due to weather, AA would not cover a hotel.
When I asked the agent if she might be able to tell me the name of a nearby hotel, she rattled off several names. I then asked if she wouldn't mind ordering me a wheelchair as at 75 yrs old I have a mobility issue. At that point, she whispered in the ear of a man behind the counter, told me to follow him, whereupon he gave me vouchers for a hotel and Uber transport. I thanked him profusely and he told me he is the manager - customer service manager, it would seem. When, after 3 tries over about an hour did not result in a wheelchair arriving, he wheeled me to the Uber pickup spot himself. I am so grateful and impressed, this is the only place I can think of to let people know.
I would do the opposite of what AA is planning. Instead of padding block time I would increase aircraft turn times. There could be some revenue loss but labor costs would not increase and might even decrease. More ground time would also result in fewer maintenance delays and allow more time for aircraft cleaning and catering. I would also stop assigning gates so far in advance at DFW. I would assign a flight to a...
I would do the opposite of what AA is planning. Instead of padding block time I would increase aircraft turn times. There could be some revenue loss but labor costs would not increase and might even decrease. More ground time would also result in fewer maintenance delays and allow more time for aircraft cleaning and catering. I would also stop assigning gates so far in advance at DFW. I would assign a flight to a terminal but not assign a specific gate until 60-70 minutes before departure.
Sort of related, did AA recently change the amount of time for boarding? My domestic flights with them lately for 737 or A320 sized planes begin boarding 40 minutes before departure and small regional jets are boarding 30 minutes prior.
Man some of AA’s connections are ridiculous. It’s like 40 mins or 4 hours. More than a few times it’s pushed me to competitors as I just want a comfy 90 mins that lets me saunter to the next gate and maybe grab a wine in the lounge.
If you pad block, but then run a truly on-time flight, that plane will land and not have a gate available (at any congested airport). That’s not a better passenger experience.
Ultimately padding block time is the same thing as buying on-time performance. You don’t solve any of the root causes of your operational troubles, you’re just spending a lot of money to make the the numbers look better on paper. The only real benefit...
If you pad block, but then run a truly on-time flight, that plane will land and not have a gate available (at any congested airport). That’s not a better passenger experience.
Ultimately padding block time is the same thing as buying on-time performance. You don’t solve any of the root causes of your operational troubles, you’re just spending a lot of money to make the the numbers look better on paper. The only real benefit is reducing Misconnects, but you can accomplish the same thing by increasing MCT (minimum connect time) rather than using padding block.
Last comment: this actually hurts revenue too. Aggregators like Google Flights will sort “best flights” in part by block time, if price is the same.
Agree; stop offering me a 35 or 40 minute connection at a large hub. Recipe for an unnecessary misconnect. I get it though that in my retired status and only six +\- trips per year, I have a higher tolerance for a long connection than a weekly business traveler has.
Somehow not having a gate available only happens to me on American when we come in early. Delta pads schedules and somehow has gates available most of the time when they come in early (not always).
I'm based in LAX so happens a lot at LAX (congested) but even when landing in BOS, ATL, etc. Delta seems to have gates American has never had a gate ready when early.
Even landing in IND American has a gate but somehow no crew to bring the plane in when they are early
So, this "unprecedented investment" is because corporate did the math and realized they were screwing over too many missed connections. The way American describes this change illustrates the big problems at the company. Instead of saying " we are changing our approach to connections to ensure more customers are able to get to their destinations on their booked itineraries and no longer miss connections and lose their baggage." American is claiming they are making an...
So, this "unprecedented investment" is because corporate did the math and realized they were screwing over too many missed connections. The way American describes this change illustrates the big problems at the company. Instead of saying " we are changing our approach to connections to ensure more customers are able to get to their destinations on their booked itineraries and no longer miss connections and lose their baggage." American is claiming they are making an "unprecedented investment" in providing basic customer service fixing a problem that they created by trying to operate a schedule that breaks down when any stess is put on the system.
Back in the day before the internet with airline booking sites, the CRS systems would compile a list of all airlines' flights between a city pair. If departure time was identical, the shorter flight would be first. Now, with many of us going directly to an airline's web site, there usually is no display of any other airline's flights, so length of flight doesn't.
(posted that before I was finished)
...really matter. A seven-hour flight JFK-SFO on AA vs a six-hour JFK-SFO flight on DL, both leaving at 800am, the AA flight is not at much of a competitive disadvantage due to longer flight time these days because while looking at the AA flight, the DL flight is not seen. In the old days, the shorter DL flight time had a big advantage.
Back then being first on a...
(posted that before I was finished)
...really matter. A seven-hour flight JFK-SFO on AA vs a six-hour JFK-SFO flight on DL, both leaving at 800am, the AA flight is not at much of a competitive disadvantage due to longer flight time these days because while looking at the AA flight, the DL flight is not seen. In the old days, the shorter DL flight time had a big advantage.
Back then being first on a display of available flights greatly increased the chance that flight would be booked. These days that's not an issue with just a single airline's flights in a list of choices.
tl;dr – Longer (padded) flight times really don't matter as much today as they did in the past.
Can you write about the lack of AA flights to Europe until March?
Only JFK-MAD and JFK-LHR.
JFK-CDG changed to MIA-CDG
Increasing block time could mean 5 minutes?
If a 737 flies 4 flights a day, which is reasonable, that means 20 minutes to buffer times. That really means nothing.
What they need to do is increase minimum connection time by 10 minutes across all stations.
Dfw mct is not 50. Its 40 unless youre going into or out of the E satellite gates. Phx mct is actually only 25
I agree, definitely a good thing. Reliability over speed any day.
Hopefully this fixes the totally absurd 30 minute connections AA allows at PHX and CLT.
Came here to say this.
I don't know any other airline that has as many 30 minute or 35 minute connections as AA.
It's absurd, just as you said.
Hopefully this spells the end of that!
until they fix the minimum connection time in phoenix, they will have more to do.
PHX is one of the few places I am comfortable scheduling a short connection. I agree 25” is pushing it but I’ve made 30-35” connections there.
Would love to see how this impacts CLT given the number of flights they sell there with super tight connections