The airline's new boarding procedure was tested extensively in simulations and was projected to reduce average boarding time by several…

The second sentence reports what actually happened once the procedure moved from simulation to the real world, in contrast to what was projected, and in practice signals exactly that shift from prediction to real-world outcome. Similarly would suggest the outcome matched the projection, the opposite of "almost no measurable time savings." As expected directly contradicts the passage, which describes an unexpected shortfall. For example would frame the second sentence as an illustration of the first's claim instead of a contrast with it.