BTS: US airlines post improved January on-time and cancellation rates

Scheduled US domestic flights had a 76.8% overall on-time arrival rate in January, up 1.5 points from December. This was a marked improvement on January 2014’s 67.7% rate, according to the March Air Travel Consumer Report released by the US Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS).

US carriers canceled 2.5% of their scheduled domestic flights in January – 12,031 out of 469,968 scheduled flights—up 1.1 point from December, and up 4 points from January 2014, when 30,852 flights were canceled.

Five US domestic flights experienced tarmac delays exceeding three hours in January, three of which were flights delayed from departing Chicago O’Hare (ORD) on Jan. 5 following a snow storm. The longest domestic delays in January occurred on Jan. 11, when two Southwest flights bound for Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY) were diverted to Jackson-Evers International Airport (JAN), in Jackson, Mississippi. The flights were delayed on the JAN tarmac for 212 and 210 minutes, respectively. DOT is investigating the circumstances behind the delays.

No international flights reported a tarmac delay on US soil exceeding four hours in January.

Delta Air Lines had January’s best on-time arrival performance, with 86.1% of its scheduled flights arriving on time. Hawaiian Airlines was second, with an 85.5% on-time arrival rate, followed by Alaska Airlines (84.6%), Virgin America (82.2%) and Southwest Airlines (79.1%). Envoy Air again had January’s worst on-time arrival rate, with 60.4% of its flights arriving on-schedule, followed by Frontier Airlines (67.1%).

Hawaiian Airlines registered January’s lowest percentage of flight cancellations—0.4%, or 26 out of Hawaiian’s 6,440 scheduled January flights were cancelled. Alaska Airlines had a similarly good record, with 0.5%, or 64 of its 13,257 scheduled flights cancelled.

On the mainland, Delta Air Lines narrowly edged out Spirit Airlines (in its first month of required data-reporting to DOT) for the best performance. Delta had 1.05% of its flights canceled in January (678 out of 64,421 scheduled flights), compared to Spirit’s 1.12% cancellation rate (98 out of 8,743 scheduled flights). Envoy Air had January’s highest percentage of cancellations—7.7%, or 2,288 out of 29,900 scheduled flights—followed by JetBlue, with 5.1% of its January flights canceled (1,102 out of 21,623 scheduled flights).

Late-arriving aircraft (i.e., the previous flight with the same aircraft arrived late, causing the present flight to depart late) were responsible for most of January’s delays nationwide (7.3%). National aviation system delays (i.e., non-extreme weather conditions, airport operations, heavy traffic volume, air traffic control, etc.) were responsible for 6.4% of all delays during the month; 6% of delays were caused by the air carrier (i.e., circumstances within the airline’s control, such as maintenance or crew problems); extreme weather was the cause for 0.7% of delays; and 0.03% of delays were due to security reasons.

(Mark Nensel - ATWOnline News)