Air travelers in the United States lose as high as $16.7 billion in annual costs due to flight delays, according to a research report submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The research was led by Mark Hansen, who is a civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley.
The report estimated the total cost to economy at around $32.9 billion, more than half of which was chipped in by the passengers as they lost time waiting in the lounges or had to spend money on food and hotel stays in case of extreme delays. The report addresses the cost factor of delays in the domestic flight delays and did not include any data for international travelers.
The research put the economic coast for airlines to be around $8.3 billion as they had to spend extra on their crew, fuel and maintenance and for adjusting delays into their flight schedules.
The report analyzed the data from the year 2007, and said the country lost up to $4 billion in gross domestic product that year because of flight delays. One in four domestic flights in that year arrived more than 15 minutes late with one-third of the delays attributed to an overburdened air traffic control system.
One-third of flights were delayed because of internal airline problems in 2007 while the rest were late because an aircraft arrived behind schedule that impacted the subsequent flights.
According to U.S. Transportation department statistics on August 2010 flight delays, which are based on data from 18 airlines, up to 81.7 percent flights arrived on-time, up from 76.7 percent in July.
