And if you're delayed while trying to connect at one of those big hub airports, chances are thousands of other travelers are stuck there, too, taking up all the nearby hotel rooms and creating an impossible workload for the airlines' agents. And when a delay is caused by weather, airlines won't do anything in the way of accommodations or meal vouchers. Second, pad your schedule by allowing extra time for a connection and by scheduling your arrival well in advance of any must-make appointments or activities. If you don't use an agency, you should have a list of alternative flight schedules with you before you head for the airport, so you'll know where to head if you miss your flight. The primary culprit is Congress, which has played politics with airport and air-traffic control budgets for decades.
Airlines are also partially to blame.
Until the mid-1980s, our airports and airways easily coped with growth because the average capacity of transport aircraft increased almost as fast as traffic. Lately, however, the airlines stopped increasing the sizes of their planes, and instead handled growth by adding more flights in small planes. The result is that the system now has virtually no slack. Even minor weather problems cause havoc with scheduling. Even with adequate funding and good management, it will take years to make up for decades of inadequate funding and mismanagement.