Cost of Delays

Direct Costs

The U.S. Department of Transportation defines airline delays as those flights arriving at least 15 minutes past the scheduled arrival time. In 2007, 134 million system delay minutes (up fifteen percent from 2006) drove an estimated $8.1 billion in direct operating costs for scheduled U.S. passenger airlines. The cost of aircraft block (taxi plus airborne) time was $60.46 per minute, two percent higher when compared to 2006 costs. On average, fuel consumption and crew time are estimated to have cost $40.57 per minute, followed by maintenance and aircraft ownership ($17.28) and all other costs ($2.62).

Notes:
1. Costs based on calendar year 2007 U.S. DOT Form 41 data as reported by U.S. scheduled passenger airlines with annual revenues of at least $100 million
2. Arrival delay minutes reflect operations at 77 U.S. airports and are taken from the FAA Aviation System Performance Metrics (ASPM) database

Additional Costs

Delayed aircraft also drive the need for extra gates and ground personnel and impose costs on airline customers (including shippers) in the form of lost productivity, wages and goodwill. Assuming $34.88 per hour* as the average value of a passenger's time, delay costs to air travelers are considerable and we estimate the total cost to passengers to be $4.2 billion.

Implications

ATC delays, especially enroute delays, prevail in many parts of the national airspace system. Moreover, our airport and airway infrastructure can not be scaled to meet future demand as anticipated in the FAA aerospace forecasts. In addition to new runways, the deployment of modern ATC technologies and changes to operational procedures are critical to the nation's air system and the economy.

* Value derived from FAA-recommended values as adjusted for BLS employment costs.