State officials in North Carolina say that while they were pleased with the quality of Brown & Root's work, they grew frustrated at chronic, substantial delays.

Since June, when United Airlines began experiencing chronic delays, it alone has added a total of 990,000 minutes to its schedule of 2,300 daily flights.

In January, digital clocks, ticking away the allotted time, will be installed at the Grand Central stop on the 4, 5 and 6 lines, where the most chronic delays are seen.

Aviation experts have complained for years that this fragmentation of airspace contributes to the chronic delays in European flights, since pilots take longer plotting their routes.

Any longtime rider will tell you that customer comfort is low on the L.I.R.R. agenda, but this is not a rant about chronic delays, shrieking intercoms, poor communication and high fares.

The money, the space agency explained, was appropriated in the last fiscal year but had not been spent because of chronic delays in shuttle operations.

Mr. Vacco's office is also taking a close look into many of the company's activities, from the stock sales to the chronic delays.

Because of chronic delays troubling Ben Aaronovitch's So Vile a Sin (which was eventually finished by Kate Orman), it was actually the 59th New Adventure published.

The first phase of the project, a nationwide airspace redesign, aims to improve safety and reduce chronic delays.

Emergency landings, chronic delays and millions of dollars in losses - and that is just the month of April.