The front page of today’s USAToday — the unofficial newspaper of record for the frequent traveler — greeted its readers with an article stating “Flights on U.S. airlines arrived late more often in the first four months of this year than in any other year since the government began tracking the numbers 13 years ago.” Not exactly dawn breaking over Marblehead for those of us who fly every week. The top 4 airports on the delay hit parade were no surprise — Newark, LaGuardia, JFK, and O’Hare.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is 0-for-3 — the airports they run own the top of the list. I can’t say that the Newark statistic surprises me. The tight runways and the approach over the Jersey Turnpike has always meant that somebody just spitting on a runway can cause a 45-minute delay. You gotta be impressed by the Port Authority’s response, though. According to the article, they said last week that they’d “set up a task force to study ways to reduce delays”. There’s proactive ownership for you. If these flight delay findings were a surprise to the Port Authority, if they didn’t know they had a delay problem months ago, then they have a whole other set of problems.

The number 4 and 5 positions on the list were a bit of a surprise to me — Philadelphia and Charlotte. What do these airports have in common? They’re both US Airways hubs. Guess that old “US Scare” moniker still holds true.