Delta’s Sneaky 5-Minute Early Departures Are Ruining Your Travel Plans—And They’re Not Even Sorry

by Gary Leff on August 17, 2024

Flight delays are annoying. Rolling delays are even worse. Sometimes an airline genuinely doesn’t know what’s going to happen. First, an inbound aircraft is delayed. And another flight delays where your crew are coming off. But then as boarding approaches they discover a mechanical problem – and what at first seems like a simple issue reveals something more time consuming, like a part that’s going to take longer to get.

That’s all understandable. What is more frustrating is when an airline clearly knows that a departure time is impossible but doesn’t update it until the last minute. You’re standing at the gate 15 minutes to scheduled departure and boarding hasn’t started yet because the plane isn’t there yet the flight still shows as departing on-time. You could have gotten something to eat, or stayed in the club longer.

Equally frustrating to late departures – or maybe even more problematic – is departing early. It’s the Goldie Locks problem. You plan on the basis of the airline’s schedule, and departing early means you have less time than you though to make it to the airport and through security. You may miss your flight!

Post by @svatikirsten

View on Threads

I especially hate when airlines publish delays – give new departure times – and then move flights back to their original departure time (or something in between). Departure times are something you should be able to rely on. Things happen to delay a flight, but except in the most extreme emergencies an airline shouldn’t move a flight earlier. If there’s a four hour delay, I’m not leaving home to head to the airport at the originally-planned time. Move a flight back, and I’m not there to board.

Gates usually close 10 minutes prior to departure, and passengers need to be in the gate area 15 minutes prior, but times are relative to the published reference point. If that reference time changes, customers lose out. In this example it’s a Delta flight leaving just 5 minutes early. Delta seems to do this more than other airlines.

While it’s ‘only’ 5 minutes, it means that they’re effectively changing the contract of carriage to 15 and 20 minutes, respectively, and that’s highly problematic. You may have decided to get a Starbucks with 5 minutes and your latte means you’re too late to fly.

More From View from the Wing