IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_9369.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Airline Delay Propagation: A Simple Method for Measuring Its Extent and Determinants

Author

Listed:
  • Jan K. Brueckner
  • Achim I. Czerny
  • Alberto A. Gaggero

Abstract

This paper offers a simple approach for identifying propagated departure delays and measuring their contribution to arrival delays. Under our approach, a propagated departure delay occurs when the arrival delay of the inbound flight exceeds the subsequent flight’s ground buffer. The size (or frequency) of such propagated delays relative to the size (or frequency) of arrival delays then measures the contribution of propagated delays to late arrivals. This approach differs from earlier attempts to quantify the contribution of delay propagation since it focuses on an individual flight and its immediate predecessor, without attempting to trace the sources of delay propagation back through the entire sequence of prior flights. The paper’s empirical results show that the contribution of propagated departure delays to arrival delays depends on several key determinants.

Suggested Citation

  • Jan K. Brueckner & Achim I. Czerny & Alberto A. Gaggero, 2021. "Airline Delay Propagation: A Simple Method for Measuring Its Extent and Determinants," CESifo Working Paper Series 9369, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9369
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp9369.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kim, Myeonghyeon & Park, Sunwook, 2021. "Airport and route classification by modelling flight delay propagation," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    2. Tan, Xinlong & Jia, Rongwen & Yan, Jia & Wang, Kun & Bian, Lei, 2021. "An Exploratory analysis of flight delay propagation in China," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    3. Hao, Lu & Hansen, Mark, 2014. "Block time reliability and scheduled block time setting," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 98-111.
    4. Brueckner, Jan K. & Czerny, Achim I. & Gaggero, Alberto A., 2021. "Airline mitigation of propagated delays via schedule buffers: Theory and empirics," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    5. Silke J. Forbes & Mara Lederman & Zhe Yuan, 2019. "Do Airlines Pad Their Schedules?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 54(1), pages 61-82, February.
    6. Shervin AhmadBeygi & Amy Cohn & Marcial Lapp, 2010. "Decreasing airline delay propagation by re-allocating scheduled slack," IISE Transactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(7), pages 478-489.
    7. Bubalo, Branko & Gaggero, Alberto A., 2015. "Low-cost carrier competition and airline service quality in Europe," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 23-31.
    8. Kafle, Nabin & Zou, Bo, 2016. "Modeling flight delay propagation: A new analytical-econometric approach," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 520-542.
    9. Li, Qiang & Jing, Ranzhe, 2021. "Characterization of delay propagation in the air traffic network," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    10. Diana, Tony, 2009. "Do market-concentrated airports propagate more delays than less concentrated ones? A case study of selected U.S. airports," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 280-286.
    11. Forbes, Silke J. & Lederman, Mara & Wither, Michael J., 2019. "Quality disclosure when firms set their own quality targets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 228-250.
    12. Mazhar Arıkan & Vinayak Deshpande & Milind Sohoni, 2013. "Building Reliable Air-Travel Infrastructure Using Empirical Data and Stochastic Models of Airline Networks," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 45-64, February.
    13. Eufrásio, Ana Beatriz R. & Eller, Rogéria A.G. & Oliveira, Alessandro V.M., 2021. "Are on-time performance statistics worthless? An empirical study of the flight scheduling strategies of Brazilian airlines," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    14. Wang, Yanjun & Zhou, Ying & Hansen, Mark & Chin, Christopher, 2019. "Scheduled block time setting and on-time performance of U.S. and Chinese airlines—A comparative analysis," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 825-843.
    15. Wong, Jinn-Tsai & Tsai, Shy-Chang, 2012. "A survival model for flight delay propagation," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 5-11.
    16. Brueckner, Jan K. & Czerny, Achim I. & Gaggero, Alberto A., 2021. "Airline schedule buffers and flight delays: A discrete model," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 26.
    17. Kang, Lei & Hansen, Mark, 2017. "Behavioral analysis of airline scheduled block time adjustment," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 56-68.
    18. Vinayak Deshpande & Mazhar Arıkan, 2012. "The Impact of Airline Flight Schedules on Flight Delays," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 14(3), pages 423-440, July.
    19. Milind Sohoni & Yu-Ching Lee & Diego Klabjan, 2011. "Robust Airline Scheduling Under Block-Time Uncertainty," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(4), pages 451-464, November.
    20. AhmadBeygi, Shervin & Cohn, Amy & Guan, Yihan & Belobaba, Peter, 2008. "Analysis of the potential for delay propagation in passenger airline networks," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 14(5), pages 221-236.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Martina Zámková & Stanislav Rojík & Martin Prokop & Radek Stolín, 2022. "Factors Affecting the International Flight Delays and Their Impact on Airline Operation and Management and Passenger Compensations Fees in Air Transport Industry: Case Study of a Selected Airlines in ," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-16, November.
    2. Chu, Ziyan & Zhou, Yichen Christy, 2023. "The effect of adopting the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) on air travel performance," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    3. Tsegai O. Yhdego & An-Tsun Wei & Gordon Erlebacher & Hui Wang & Miguel G. Tejada, 2023. "Analyzing the Impacts of Inbound Flight Delay Trends on Departure Delays Due to Connection Passengers Using a Hybrid RNN Model," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-24, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Abdelghany, Ahmed & Guzhva, Vitaly S. & Abdelghany, Khaled, 2023. "The limitation of machine-learning based models in predicting airline flight block time," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    2. Brueckner, Jan K. & Czerny, Achim I. & Gaggero, Alberto A., 2021. "Airline mitigation of propagated delays via schedule buffers: Theory and empirics," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    3. Brueckner, Jan K. & Czerny, Achim I. & Gaggero, Alberto A., 2021. "Airline schedule buffers and flight delays: A discrete model," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 26.
    4. Wang, Yanjun & Li, Max Z. & Gopalakrishnan, Karthik & Liu, Tongdan, 2022. "Timescales of delay propagation in airport networks," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    5. Wang, Chunzheng & Hu, Minghua & Yang, Lei & Zhao, Zheng, 2022. "Improving the spatial-temporal generalization of flight block time prediction: A development of stacking models," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    6. Birolini, Sebastian & Jacquillat, Alexandre, 2023. "Day-ahead aircraft routing with data-driven primary delay predictions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 310(1), pages 379-396.
    7. Eufrásio, Ana Beatriz R. & Eller, Rogéria A.G. & Oliveira, Alessandro V.M., 2021. "Are on-time performance statistics worthless? An empirical study of the flight scheduling strategies of Brazilian airlines," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    8. Tan, Xinlong & Jia, Rongwen & Yan, Jia & Wang, Kun & Bian, Lei, 2021. "An Exploratory analysis of flight delay propagation in China," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    9. Kim, Myeonghyeon & Bae, Jiheon, 2021. "Modeling the flight departure delay using survival analysis in South Korea," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    10. Bombelli, Alessandro & Sallan, Jose Maria, 2023. "Analysis of the effect of extreme weather on the US domestic air network. A delay and cancellation propagation network approach," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    11. Guo, Zhen & Hao, Mengyan & Yu, Bin & Yao, Baozhen, 2022. "Detecting delay propagation in regional air transport systems using convergent cross mapping and complex network theory," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    12. Kafle, Nabin & Zou, Bo, 2016. "Modeling flight delay propagation: A new analytical-econometric approach," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 520-542.
    13. Wu, Cheng-Lung & Law, Kristie, 2019. "Modelling the delay propagation effects of multiple resource connections in an airline network using a Bayesian network model," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 62-77.
    14. Kenan, Nabil & Jebali, Aida & Diabat, Ali, 2018. "The integrated aircraft routing problem with optional flights and delay considerations," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 355-375.
    15. Chen, Shenwen & Du, Wenbo & Liu, Runran & Cao, Xianbin, 2023. "Finding spatial and temporal features of delay propagation via multi-layer networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 614(C).
    16. Calzada, Joan & Fageda, Xavier, 2023. "Airport dominance, route network design and flight delays," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    17. Liu, Ke & Zheng, Zhe & Zou, Bo & Hansen, Mark, 2023. "Airborne flight time: A comparative analysis between the U.S. and China," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    18. Roucolle, Chantal & Seregina, Tatiana & Urdanoz, Miguel, 2020. "Network development and excess travel time," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 139-152.
    19. Kang, Lei & Hansen, Mark, 2017. "Behavioral analysis of airline scheduled block time adjustment," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 56-68.
    20. Zhe Zheng & Wenbin Wei & Bo Zou & Minghua Hu, 2020. "How Late Does Your Flight Depart? A Quantile Regression Approach for a Chinese Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-16, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L93 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Air Transportation
    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9369. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.