"AIRLINES pad flight schedules to boost on-time performance," a USA Today headline trumpeted recently. This revelation that airlines have been lengthening their official flight times is neither new nor surprising. But what I was surprised to learn is that in 2012, for the first time ever, more flights in America were early than were late. The paper's analysis of Department of Transportation data showed that the early-arrival rate last year was the highest since the DOT started keeping track in 1987.

"That's not as good as it sounds," USA Today went on to say—but actually, it is.

USA Today contends that "some question whether airlines have padded schedules too much," and that "idle time drives some travellers batty". But schedule padding is better for business travellers than delays. Airlines owe travellers a realistic estimate of how long it will take to get to their destination, not an optimistic shot in the dark that ends up being wrong as often as it's right. And let's face it, most of us would prefer being early to being late. Schedule padding can lead to inefficiencies that cost airlines money, but delays cost airlines money too. Why give erring on the side of caution a bad name?

Instead of whinging about flights arriving early, journalists and policymakers should focus on the underlying problems that lead airlines to pad schedules. The big inefficiency in modern air travel isn't schedule padding, it's outdated air-traffic-control systems and overcrowded airports, especially in busy skies like those over America's north-east. Last year President Barack Obama signed a bill intended to begin the process of modernising America's air-traffic-control system by speeding up the shift from radar-based technology to GPS. But the modernisation program has faced continued delays. Focusing on those problems might better illuminate the reasons why airline schedules are so unpredictable.