import timeit

def sum1(arrs):
    return sum(arrs, [])

def sum2(arrs):
    s = []
    for arr in arrs:
        s += arr
    return s

def main():
    array_of_arrays = [[0] for _ in range(1000)]
    print timeit.timeit(lambda: sum1(array_of_arrays), number=100)
    print timeit.timeit(lambda: sum2(array_of_arrays), number=100)

if __name__=='__main__':
    main()

>> 0.247241020203
>> 0.0043830871582