That 28-minute connection you just booked—gate change, terminal hop, boarding already underway—used to be exactly what airlines wanted to sell. For years, shaving minutes off itineraries helped flights float to the top of old-school search displays, where “fastest” often meant “first page” and “first page” meant sales.
Now the ranking game is different, and so is the customer. American Airlines network planning chief Brian Znotins says he has stopped obsessing over one- and two-minute schedule wins, because modern platforms surface “best” tradeoffs instead of simply the shortest elapsed time—and American’s own data suggests travelers are increasingly choosing longer connections on purpose.
Airlines no longer have to be ‘on the first page of the display of flight choices’ in the same way any longer. It used to be that the shortest total travel time options would appear first, and longer connections could get pushed to a second page that nobody would see. But modern systems (like Google) have their own algorithms for what’s best and what comes first.
And passengers often no longer want the fastest total travel time. Some customers don’t notice and wind up surprised, stressed (trying to make a connection) and inconvenienced (when they don’t, or when their bags don’t). But others purposely avoid 25 minute connections that involve a change of concourse in Phoenix, knowing that their next flight is already boarding when their inbound lands – if it’s even on time.
The excellent Brian Sumers in his (worthwhile) paid newsletter interviews American Airlines network planning head Brian Znotins about the airline’s reconfiguration of its schedules at Dallas-Fort Worth with a bet that they’ll make more money with a more reliable operation and Znotins actually shares data around customers preferring longer connections than they used to.
“Twenty years years ago, I would have been a zealot about elapsed time and display on GDSs,“ Znotins said. “I would have been like, [it’s] true [that] nobody buys a ticket because one’s six hours and two minutes and the other one is six hours. But if I fall off that first page on the GDS, that was a really big deal.”
Sure, GDS placement still matters. But most modern search platforms employ proprietary algorithms to rank flights. Google Flights, my preferred search site, shows me the “best” options, not the fastest one. “By default, Google shows you the flights that offer the best trade-offs between price, convenience, and ease of booking,” Google explains.
American’s website does something similar. “It comes up with nonstop and fare and time of day — and not elapsed time,” Znotins said. “Everywhere I look, elapsed time doesn’t seem to be the second-most important thing anymore. It’s somewhere in the mix. And so I’m not as hyper-focused on squeezing those one- or two-minute improvements out of my itineraries than I was before.”
Customers may also prefer longer connections. I’ve heard anecdotes about people who book long layovers on purpose, fearing lost bags and misconnections, but Znotins put some data to it, using predictions from American’s model, which looks at the last two decades of passenger data to predict what people will book.
That model calculates that American should have about 9,000 passengers who book a 40-54 minute connection at DFW on an average day. “In reality, when we look at the actual demand we got for our flying versus what the model thought we were going to get, it was 4 percent lower than that, in that window,” Znotins said.
The model also predicted that about 19,000 passengers would book connections between 55 and 84 minutes. That number is 8 percent higher. “So what it says is, when people are buying their tickets, something else is helping to make their decision, not just elapsed time.”
Airlines used to design schedules to win the first page of flight search by minimizing elapsed time. American Airlines data suggests travelers now choose longer connections for reliability—and the Dallas-Fort Worth schedule rebuild is enabled by that shift.
Is saving 15 or 20 minutes on a connection worth the anxiety and rush to make the connection. For me, not at all! I typically will ONLY book where there is at least 1 hour and 10 minutes between connections (or more), and if my incoming flight arrives on time (or a bit early) then I can go to the Admirals Club for a beverage and bite morsel. Yes, I am up in age (86) and walk slow, so that might have something to do with my decision making also. I kinda laugh at the jostling rush of so many discourteous passengers in the concourses. Life is too short to be racing from one corner to another. Stop and take a breath and smell the roses!
For years I have avoided tight connections. This is nothing new, and is especially true if a) I am on AA, and b) especially if I’m routed through either PHX or DFW…or CLT, for that matter. I look at AA’s flight schedules and think, “WTF? Who in their right mind thinks you could make a 25-minute connection @ PHX? Not even O.J. Simpson when he was running through airports for Hertz could make a connection like that!” And I’ve been in DFW too many times when my connection was located in another terminal — over to A, no wait — it’s in D now, oops — back to C… [insert rolling eyes emoji here.]
Just in time delivery is fine for parcels. I know @Gary thinks if you’ve never missed a flight, you’re arriving at the airport too soon, but the only flights I’ve ever missed (two) were both AA and both were on short connections. I’d much rather relax for, say, an hour in the lounge and then stroll to my gate as boarding starts than race through the airport leaping over suitcases and people in wheelchairs trying to make a connection…
Decreased competition. Everything shows up on the first page when there are only 4 airlines.
Thank you for acknowledging this! I hope that Delta, my preferred carrier, takes note. 40 minutes to transit Seattle? 60 minutes Schengen/International at Amsterdam? It’s a total invitation to travel stress, no thanks.
Data always rules.
So glad that AA is building its schedules around what people actually buy and not what they think people will buy.
At one time I was more comfortable with short connections where the airline would adjust timing to make sure most people made their connections and have reasonable fallbacks for those who didn’t. These days, where airlines don’t take responsibility for their shortcomings, I am not comfortable with such short connections. I am more comfortable with a two hour connection than a one hour connection. I am willing to pay a slight premium for the longer connection time. If I have a choice of connecting airports, I also will try to choose the one with more alternate times for fallback situations.
The 30mins you saved by taking the 35min connection instead of the 65min connection will be used up as you wait at the baggage carousel due to boarding too late to fit a carry-on. As a bonus you will be sweating after your run though the airport.
Half the time you will fail to make it and end up being rebooked onto the later flight, so while you will now be in time to fit your bag in the overhead, you will have lost your exit row window seat for a middle seat in the last row. Not for me.
my preferred carrier is Delta so i agree 100% with Richard Voit. my Dad worked for Ozark for 20 yrs and i worked for TWA and Western Pacific in the 90s and all those years around the industry i learned never book a connection under 2 hrs. i prefer 3 hrs myself. Delta actually sells 45 min connections in AMS and CDG. having been to both airports i can not see that happening. better chance at AMS than CDG. they must have to hold the planes since they sold that connection.
They act like this is news. Out of touch management waking up about 7 years too late. Frequent flyers have been complaining about the banking at hubs for years.