IOS – How to change the default 1 hour duration of a new appointment in the iOS calendar

I now include the actual time in the title of the event. For example: "9am Flight LAX -JFK" This way, if the phone changes my time setting (which it inevitably does regardless of how I have it set) I will still know what time my flight is. Doesn't work for alerts, but I often enter flight info in a different time zone from where I will take the flight and this helps to keep me from missing a flight.

No you can not.

I assume you're using Exchange for you calendar, although you didn't specifically say so.

You can't necessarily create a private event, but you can create a subcalendar in Exchange that you can control the permissions of so that only you can see it. You can do this by:

1. Open Outlook

2. Go to Calendars

3. Right click on your current main calendar and click New Calendar...

4. Create the new calendar under your Exchange account's Calendar section

5. Right click on your new calendar and select Properties.

6. Go to the Permissions tab.

7. Make sure the "Default" user is set to None.

8. Set your own permissions to "Owner" and remove any other users from the list.

This calendar should show up on your iPhone fairly quickly. If it doesn't, try disabling Calendar syncing in Settings → Mail, Contacts, Calendars → Exchange.