Scott
I have a problem with this article as the report can't do simple math. "There is a lot of money at stake. Airlines say their average cost of "block time". the industry metric for the period when an aircraft is taxiing or flying, was $68.48 per minute in 2017, or $4,109 hourly, led by crew and jet fuel expenses. The average delay of those 563 flights on Feb. 6 was 8 minutes. For perspective, 10 flights delayed by 10 minutes costs about $70,000, ALPA noted. To make matters worse, the block time average is likely to rise this year—further aggravating airline executives and pilots whenever a SpaceX or United Launch Alliance LLC rocket closes airspace."
At $68.50 per minute as the average block cost, then a 10 minute block would be $685.00 per aircraft multiply that by 10 aircraft would only equal $ 6850.00. Even if you use the $4109.00 hourly rate for the 10 aircraft is still on $41090.00 far short of the $70,000.00 quoted. Also I recently flew United from IAD to EWR which departed the gate on time and then sat on a taxiway for 30 minutes because according to the pilot they didn't have a landing slot at EWR. So I'm not sure how concerned they are about flight delay especially for rocket launches in Florida.