Airport size and travel time

Econometric modelling of the scheduled duration of 2010 flights between 57 origin and 375 destination airports in the year 2009 supports hypotheses (a) that airlines will incorporate realistic predictions of aircraft time on the ground into their published schedules, and (b) that this time will depend positively on airport size, as well as other factors. That is, larger airports generate time diseconomies of scale. A corollary is that actual lateness of flights is not related to airport size. The value of additional time is significant compared with airports' operating revenues and costs of slot congestion at large airports.