Actually, I’ve heard the departure and arrival times are pretty good nowadays. When we were doing all that flying we were rarely delayed more than a few minutes.
I did find it comical when, before we left, I saw out the window a maintenance man lift a panel on one of the engines and pour in a quart of oil. I saw him as I got off and asked, “So, was she a quart low?” He said, “Actually, yes.”
My experiences may be atypical but it’s what I also observed with a friend. And frankly been my experience going back to the mid 80s. Sitting 2 hours on a tarmac (or waiting at a gate for 6 hours with clear weather) is not new.
But it is frustrating to arrive at rush hour in NYC when you were supposed to land at noon. It’s even more of an upset when you are supposed to arrive in Seatle in the afternoon and get there at 2:30 in the morning because your plane is scheduled to make a roundtrip to NYC (point A to point B back to point A) before flying you to Seattle (point A to point C) and has not left Houston (point A) for NYC by the time your flight to Seattle was to have left. Screw that logistic, get me a new damn plane.
My friend flew Vegas to Houston this summer and arrived over 5 hours late (clear weather, landed around 1am).
No way in hell would I let the airlines possibly bump me for flying standby with that miserable track record.