Why you should thank the airlines for canceling flights

We all know the sinking feeling when you hear your plane is running 15 minutes late. Because we all know that unlike regular minutes, which expire after sixty seconds, airline minutes are more like cable company minutes, or even Department of Motor Vehicles minutes, and we get impatient and angry.

But Professor Amy Cohn wants to remind all of us that no airline does this intentionally.

She teaches Engineering at the University of Michigan and has spent 20 years studying flight operations.

What most passengers don’t consider, she points out, is that your aircraft may service as many as 11 different fight routes in a single day.

This is why a local thunderstorm in Rhode Island can affect a shuttle flight on the West coast – because the aircraft delayed by that thunderstorm between Providence and Baltimore is due to fly between Salt Lake City and Oakland later that day. So to keep it on time, the airline may elect to cancel an intermediate stop, to get back on schedule.

And that’s the main reason flights are canceled: so that the aircraft can be on time in the next city where it’s needed. And until Congress updates the air traffic control system so planes can make up time by taking shortcuts, that’s the way it has to be.

Bottom line – every time your trip has been ruined by the cancellation of your flight – maybe as many as five other times, your trip was saved by the cancellation of someone else’s flight.

So the next time your flight is canceled – remember: your sacrifice is keeping five other people on time. And if that’s not a way to get to heaven, nothing is.