Air Travel: Safer, Cheaper, But Less Reliable?
2025-08-16
In recent years, anecdotal evidence suggests a decline in air travel reliability. This analysis uses US Department of Transportation data to reveal a complex picture. While air accidents are declining, significant flight delays are increasingly common, with 3+ hour delays four times more likely in 2024 than in 1990. Airlines are masking this by artificially inflating scheduled flight times. Airfare has become cheaper over the past decade, but this comes at the cost of reliability. Contributing factors may include changes in airline financial models, airport infrastructure saturation, and understaffing of air traffic control.