US domestic air travel increasingly late: study surprises nobody

More US domestic air flights are late than ever before.  It's the second-worst or worst ever, depending on how you track it:

More than 26 percent of commercial flights in the U.S. arrived late or were canceled last year as rising passenger demand and an industry preference for smaller planes intensified congestion in the skies and on runways.
Excluding cancellations, however, 2007 was the worst on record for flight delays, with 24.2 percent arriving late, compared with 23.9 percent in 2000...

Worse yet, it's not going to get better.  For one,

The air-travel logjam, reported Tuesday by the Department of Transportation, comes as a growing number of air traffic controllers near retirement age -- a trend the controllers' union says will magnify the problem.

And for another thing,

There is no sign of improvement on the horizon, analysts said, because airlines continue to replace larger aircraft with smaller ones. The practice is intended to maximize profit margins by flying with fewer empty seats, but it also means more flights and more congestion and delays.