Inside Delta’s war on canceled flights

In 2010, Delta Airlines discovered that passengers would rather have the annoyance of a two-hour delay than the uncertainty of a canceled flight, even if it was rebooked within two hours. Thus began a mission to end flight cancellations with a battery of new analytical tools and policies, explained by The Wall Street Journal. This can be as high-tech as developing monitors that can predict when a plane part will fail, or as basic as pushing the desks of maintenance and customer service workers closer together for “easy eavesdropping.” Delta was rewarded with 72 cancellation-free days in 2013, a track record well above the industry average.