Heike Hofmann, Di Cook, Chris Kielion, Barret Schloerke, Jon Hobbs, Adam Loy, Lawrence Mosley, David Rockoff, Yuanyuan Sun, Danielle Wrolstad, Tengfei Yin Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 10 10 10 10 ARRIVAL & DEPARTURE Most flights have 0 delay, with fewer and fewer flights having increasing delays. A secondary peak occurs at 24 hours suggests a limit of 24 hours delay is used by some carriers. Some data is likely incorrect, eg flights arriving 24 hours early. 6 4 2 0 -24 -12 0 12 24 36 Arrival Delay (hours) Data 10 6 104 102 2000 2001 2002 Unique_Carrier 200 AA AQ 150 AS CO 100 DL 50 EV Fuel Consumption (Mio Gallons) Delayed, Cancelled, On Time, Boarding, ...... Flying in the USA Fuel Efficiency F9 0 2003 2004 FL 2005 HA 200 HP 150 MQ NW 100 TW 50 TZ UA 0 2006 2007 US 2008 WN 200 XE 150 B6 OH 100 DH OO 50 The data are provided by Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) and Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). Arrival and departure details for 123 million commercial flights throughout the United States are recorded between October 1987 and December 2008, representing 29 commercial airlines and 3,376 airports. About 2.3 million flights were cancelled, 25 million flights were at least 15 minutes late. 100 9E 0 -24 -12 0 12 24 36 10 Departure Delay (hours) 1988 1989 1990 BY SCHEDULED DEPARTURE TIME & YEAR Delays increase as day progresses. In 2001 they show an overall decrease, likely to be structural change, maybe FAA policy. Delays deteriorated again after 2003. 1991 20 15 10 5 0 -5 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 Average Arrival Delay 20 15 10 5 0 -5 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 Year 20 15 10 5 0 -5 1990 1995 2000 2005 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 20 15 10 5 0 -5 40 50 60 70 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 10 20 30 40 50 60 YV 70 Carrier_Name 2007 NA American Airlines Inc. Aloha Airlines Inc. 1.2 Alaska Airlines Inc. JetBlue Airways Continental Air Lines Inc. 1.0 Delta Air Lines Inc. Atlantic Southeast Airlines Frontier Airlines Inc. AirTran Airways Corporation 0.8 Hawaiian Airlines Inc. America West Airlines Inc. American Eagle Airlines Inc. Northwest Airlines Inc. 0.6 Comair Inc. Skywest Airlines Inc. ATA Airlines d/b/a ATA United Air Lines Inc. 0.4 US Airways Inc. FUEL USE Consumption versus distance flown. Three groups of carriers are operating in 2000 - American Airlines is moving into the lead, Southwest is moving out of the middle group, closing up with AA and has overtaken AA on distance flown and efficiency 2007-8. 1 100 NW 80 60 40 WNW 20 0 W NNW N 2 NNE WSW SW SSW S SSE NW NE 100 NW 80 60 40 WNW 20 0 W All three runways in Phoenix are oriented East-West (see above). Do crosswinds affect air traffic? On the right, arrival delays are plotted against permutations of wind direction (null plots). One plot shows the real data of the observed wind directions. FUEL EFFICIENCY Smaller carriers more efficient, probably due to use of smaller planes. Larger carriers American is one of the least efficient, Southwest is most efficient. Hawaiian Airlines very inefficient. SSW S N NNE SSE NNE SSW S SSE 100 NW 80 60 40 WNW 20 0 W E W E W ESE WSW ESE WSW ESE WSW SW SE SSW WSW SW SSW S S SSE SW SE SSW NW NE NNW N SSE S SSE NNE NW NE NNW N NNE ENE WNW E W E W E W ESE WSW ESE WSW ESE WSW SSW S NW NE NNW N SSE SW SE SSW S SSE SW SE NNE NW NE NNW N NNE E W E W ESE WSW ESE WSW ESE WSW S SW SE SSW NW NE NNW N S NNE NW NE SSE SW SE NNE E W E W E W ESE WSW ESE WSW ESE WSW S SSE SE SW SSW S S SSE Arrival De SE NNW N 40 NNE 60 80 NE ESE SSW S SSE SE NNW N SSE SE NNE NE ENE E SW ESE SSW S SSE SE Can you spot which one? If you can differentiate the true plot from the null plots, we can reject the null hypothesis of crosswinds being unrelated to arrival delays with a pvalue of less than 0.0625 (= 1/16). Expressjet Airlines Inc. 2008 OO 20 15 10 5 0 -5 XE MQ YV OH EV US FL WN B6 CO F9 AS UA AQ DL AA NW HA Carrier 500 100015002000 500 100015002000 500 100015002000 500 100015002000 Mesa Airlines Inc. Believe it or not?? 500 100015002000 Scheduled Departure BY DAY OF WEEK Best days to travel and avoid delays are Saturdays, and Tuesdays or Wednesdays. Fridays are bad for delays. Mo 10 8 We 6 Th 4 Sa 2 Su 1995 2000 2005 8 6.5 6 6.0 4 5.5 2 5.0 5 0 CO 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 1985 1990 Year 1995 2000 2005 F9 EV FL 15 10 5 0 HA MQ NW OH OO UA US WN XE YV 1990 1995 2000 2005 1990 1995 2000 2005 1990 1995 2000 2005 1990 1995 2000 2005 1990 1995 2000 2005 15 10 5 0 0 1985 DL 2010 Year 15 10 Flight volume is on the increase - dramatically so since 2000. Structural shifts (below) in the flight load for airports lead to minimal average delays (above, right) in `02 and `03. Delays have been on the increase since. 5 0 1400 1200 Volume 1000 Sep '01 - W.T.C. Attack Feb '91 - Eastern Airline ceases all operations March '89 - Eastern Airline workers go on STRIKE Mar 03' - Several carriers expand their operations in Atlanta Airport ? ATL 800 ORD Nov 03' - A.A. Buys T.W.A. and cuts flights in St. Louis 600 SEA STL 400 200 0 1985 1990 1995 2000 Time 2005 2010 Large changes in airports’ daily flight volume are triggered by different events, including strikes, FAA order, and seasonal fluctuations, Year 9E AA AQ AS B6 CO Pinnacle American Aloha Alaska JetBlue Continental DL Delta EV Atlantic Number of flights (in 10.000) Southeast Frontier 2 F9 4 FL AirTran 6 HA Hawaiian 8 America West 10 HP MQ American Eagle NW Northwest OH Comair OO Skywest UA United US US Airways WN Southwest XE Expressjet YV Mesa I’m sorry, Sir, but your flight left 12h early’ According to the data, this was said to all passengers of 247 flights. Another 165 flights left at least 2h early. Example: US Airways Aircraft N-881 - Ghostflight from PIT to RIC (222 miles) Year Month Day DepTime 1995 3 8 1102 1995 3 8 1311 1995 3 8 1913 1995 3 8 2134 ArrTime Origin 1256 PIT NA CVG 2050 RIC 2300 PIT Dest Diverted CVG 0 PIT 1 PIT 0 MSY 0 ``Within-City Hoppers’’- if you’re in a real time crunch A total of 232,809 flights cover a distance of less than 50 miles. The shortest commercial flights occur between the New York airports La Guardia (LGA) and John F. Kennedy (JFK). The distance is 11 miles, which according to google.maps can be covered in 18 min by car, and according to data, takes 14 min of air time. Ghost Flight Totals: over 1 million flights since 1995, with an average distance between airports of 1000 miles, corresponding to about 1.5 million gallons of fuel. Since 2001 the number of ghost flights is cut, with major airlines also decreasing the fuel consumption. Smaller carriers are facing increasing costs from ghost flights. Number of Ghost Flights (in 1000) 100 30 20 10 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 5 10 15 Arrival Delay (min) 20 30 20 10 0 6 8 10 12 14 40 Average Wind Speed (mph) Tools 80 30 60 40 20 0 CO AA DL 0 2000000 5 1995 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 BY AIRPORT EWR (Newark) is the worst. ORD (Chicago O’Hare) is not good, but also has high volume. DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth) is relatively good - high traffic but relatively small delay. Weather plays a huge role in delays - any kind of preciptation, high winds, or reduced visibility increases delays (scatterplots above) Monthly Average Snow Fall (in) 0 40 Average Delay (in min) 40 Average Delay (in min) Average Delay (in min) Destination Volume at Major Airports: Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle, St Louis EWR SFO BOS LGA JFK PHL SEA CMH FLL ORD ATL MIA MCO TPA IND MCI PDX SMF LAX LAS MSY DEN SAT CLE SAN ABQ ONT PIT BWI AUS IAH MDW STL DFW HOU IAD PHX RDU OAK DCA CVG DAL SLC SJC DTW SNA HNL CLT BNA MSP MEM Name count 7.0 10 Carrier Average % of Sunshine 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 mySQL database on fast server (thanks to Ted Peterson) 2007 Year 4 3 1500000 2 1 0 NW UA B6 FL 1000000 HA 1500000 5 500000 4 UniqueCarrier 2000000 Ghost Gallons 10 B6 Ghost Gallons Average Arrival Delay (in min) by Flight AS CAN WE SEE WHAT IS NOT THERE? Planes have, for reasons such as maintenance, weather, or schedule fly empty between airports as so-called Ghosts. By tracking individual planes, we reveal their paths, including situations, where a plane lands in a different airport than where it takes off later, i.e. a ghost: Monthly Fuel use (in Mio Gallons) for Ghosts # Flights (in Mio) AQ AA 15 average Arrival Delays (in min) FLIGHTS OF `07 The maps above and below show all flights from 2007. Southwest Airlines (WN) operates without a hub system, the other airlines’ hubs are prominent. Small carriers tend to operate locally. 9E Three of American Airlines’ registered vehicles in the database are RAVEN hot air balloons. Based on the data, they cruise at an impressive average speed of 430 miles an hour. Fasten those hats! Fr Arrival Delay by Day of the week DELAYS BY CARRIER, YEAR Increasing delays for small carriers, except for Aloha. Delta and US Airways are improving. Racing Balloons? Tu 1990 Hourly weather details for each airport from Weather Underground at http://www.wunderground.com Ghosts of Flights DoW 12 Arrival Delay (min) Additional BTS Data: * Monthy fuel cost and consumption data by carrier * Fleet information by carrier 14 3 2 2003 2004 2005 2006 FL 1000000 HA 2007 2008 Google Earth Year 1 500000 0 2000 2002 2004 2006 2000 2002 2004 Year 2006 2000 2002 2004 R and packages - ggplot2 (Hadley Wickham) - DBI, RMySQL (David James, Jeff Horner) UniqueCarrier B6 2006 2003 2004 2005 Year 2006 2007 2008 0 20 ENE NW NE ENE WNW SSW NE 16 ENE WNW SW NNE E ENE WNW SE SSW 15 NNW N NNW N ESE NW NE E W SSE SE 12 ENE WNW SSW S SSE ENE 11 ENE WNW SW SSW E ENE WNW SE ESE NW NE ENE WNW SW NE 8 ENE WNW SE NNE E SW SE NNW N ENE 7 14 NNE NW NE E W 13 NNW N NNE ENE WNW 10 WSW SW NW NE 4 ENE WNW 9 NNW 100 NW 80 60 40 WNW 20 0 W NNE 6 WSW SW 3 NNW N ENE WNW 5 NNW N NNW N Southwest Airlines Co. 2007 Additional Sources 30 Distance (Mio Miles) Miles Per Gallons 1987 20 Crosswinds Arrival Delays (in min) Delays supported by NSF grant # 0706949 100