The User Costs of Air Travel Delay Variability

We derive the expected user costs of U.S. domestic air travel delay variability taking into account scheduling behavior of travelers. Travelers do not only consider mean arrival delays but also face scheduling costs because they arrive too early or too late at their destination. The model allows travelers to anticipate arrival delay variability by choosing an earlier flight. We show that the expected user costs of U.S. air traffic delays are almost doubled if expected schedule delay of travelers is accounted for, whereas the benefits of improvements in mean delay are underestimated by 16% if arrival delay variability is ignored.