Traveling can be a nightmare. Between delays, cancellations and constantly shifting plans; it’s incredibly high stress. Are there ways to ensure your flight arrives on time? Yes!
Thankfully, we have access to wonderful documents like the Air Travel Consumer Report released by The Office of Aviation Consumer Protection. The Bureau of Transportation collects data from every passenger flight and every commercial airport across the country. It’s a huge document with a lot of numbers, but absolutely fascinating to dig into.
Presented below is an analysis of commercial air travel in November 2022, the most recently released report. All of the statistics, aside from otherwise noted, happened during the month of November 2022. While not perfectly translated into a larger view of the year, the numbers a good look at some trends that represent the larger picture.
Time of Day
Is there a certain time to travel with a lower chance of delays? Yes! The best time to take off is in the hour of 6:00 a.m. 91.3% of flights across the country left off on time.
Even if you’re against waking up early, it benefits to leave before noon. Between 6:00 a.m. and noon, 86.55% of flights took off on time, compared to 75.65% between noon and 11:59 p.m. Each hour saw a drop in the on-time departure rate.
This would make sense, as one delay messes up the rest of the aircraft’s schedule. Say, for example, Jim the airplane is scheduled to fly a 5:00 a.m. flight from Chicago to Miami. It arrives in Miami 30 minutes before it’s scheduled 8:00 a.m. arrival. Jim’s 9:30 a.m. flight to Boston is still on time.
However, at 9:15 a.m., a rainstorm in Miami grounds planes until 10:45 a.m. Jim takes off an hour and a half late and arrives in Boston the same. Now, Jim’s flight from Boston to D.C., D.C. to Dallas and Dallas to Los Angeles will all be behind.
Make sense?
Overall, 80% of flights left on time in November 2022.
But who really cares about departures? Airlines budget in time for minor delays and planes can make up time in the air.
Arrivals paint a similar picture, with the ideal scheduled arrival time shifting between 7:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m., where 87.9% of flights arrived on time. Even though this is below the highest departure rate, the country saw 80.3% of flights arriving on time.
Interestingly, of the late departures, 0.3% were able to make up time in the air.
What about specific cities?
As diverse as the U.S. is, each airport faces unique challenges. Phoenix doesn’t have to worry about thunderstorms as much as Tampa, and neither worry about snow.
There’s great news to those flying out of Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD). Of the 30 largest U.S. airports, the Virginia airport’s departures saw the highest on-time rate of 87.9%.
IAD also beat out Detroit’s Airport (DTW) for the highest on-time arrivals, with a 0.2% higher rate. 86.3% of travelers landed in the nation’s capital on time.
Orlando International Airport (MCO) had both the worst on-time departure and arrival record of the 30 largest U.S. airports. Only 67.5% of flights departed The City Beautiful on time, while a slightly better 68.7% arrived on time. MCO did fare better than the city’s northern Sanford airport.
If you do fly into Central Florida, opt for the coastal Melbourne Airport (MLB), which saw 86.3% on-time arrivals and 85.8% departures.
Flying into New York?
Aside from New Jersey’s Newark Airport (EWR) having my favorite views, each airport has a different record. Of the city’s main three, fly into JFK (77.4% on time), compared to EWR (75.8%) and LGA (73%). JFK also has the easiest access to the city through the Subway and the iconic TWA Hotel.
When you’re departing, also fly out of JFK (79.5% on-time departure) and choose a flight that leaves in the hour of 7:00 a.m.
Flying into Washington D.C.?
While Washington Regan (DCA) is my personal favorite, shout out to the bike trail connections, Washington Dulles (IAD) has the best track record. 86.3% arrival and, as mentioned, 87.9% departure. Throw in the new Silver Line extension and it’s a great option to get to the nation’s capital.
Flying into Southern California?
Los Angeles International (LAX) is your best bet for sunny SoCal. 83% of flights arrived on time, while 85.2% departed on time.
Ontario Airport (ONT) saw the lowest on-time arrivals, at 77.8%, while Santa Ana/Orange County (SNA) had the lowest on-time departures at 78.8%.
Flying into the Bay Area?
San Francisco International (SFO) is the way to go. With an on-time arrival rate of 84.4% and on-time departure of 85.8%, it beats out nearby San Jose (SJC) and Oakland (OAK) by up to 6%!
Flying into South Florida?
Like Orlando, none of the three South Florida airports have a particularly impressive on-time track. Miami International (MIA) has the most sound, with 77.3% of flights arriving on-time and 78.1% departing.
Does Airport Size Matter?
It’s a common “travel hack” to fly into secondary airports and avoid the stress of airports handling tens of millions of people. However, according to almost all of the statistics above, the city’s largest airport usually has the best track record.
Why is this?
Budget airlines, see below, usually populate the markets in secondary airports because flight spots are cheaper. Budget airlines also have significantly worse records than the legacy and mainline carriers, potentially dragging down the average.
The best track records are in small airports. Pretty much every airport that handled less that 100 flights in November saw an on-time rate above 85% in both arrivals and departures.
Specific Airlines?
Time to get confusing again. A lot of the bigger airlines in the country operate under a thing called codeshare agreements. This basically means that a smaller airline is operating every aspect of your flight, but it’s flying under a bigger name. The airplane is branded as the bigger airline, the flight is scheduled as the bigger airline’s and every aspect inside is part of the bigger one’s.
Think of it like a fast food franchise. Janice owns a McDonald’s. She is responsible for operating the restaurant as her own, but the name and food are all under McDonald’s name.
There’s probably better ways to dive into this, like this article here. For the purpose of clarity and simplicity, I will be merging the data of the smaller airlines with the larger they flew as.
So, for specific airlines, Delta Airlines had the highest on-time performance in all of 2022. Between their flights and codeshare agreements, the airline had an 84.2% on-time arrival record. Frontier Airlines had the worst, with 64.6% of their flights arriving on time, almost 20% lower!
Hawaiian Airlines had the second worse delay record at 66.1%, followed by Allegiant and jetBlue which both sat under 70%.
Surprisingly, the despised Spirit Airlines came in sixth in terms of on-time arrivals at 73.4%.
Even with their on-time performance, at least Hawaiian Airlines got people to their destinations. The airline had the fewest cancellations in November with its paradise-bound jets only cancelled 0.8% of the time.
Southwest and Delta had the next fewest cancellations, both under 1%. Southwest, however, tanked their reputation during the company’s meltdown in the following month.
Frontier had the highest cancellation rate at 2.6% which was 0.7% higher than the next, Spirit Airlines.
Another interesting note was baggage mishandling. American Airlines had the highest rate of mishandled bags. The number of mishandled bags almost matches Southwest’s, even though the latter enplaned nearly twice as many as American. The airline mishandled 0.76 per 100 bags!
Allegiant Airlines, which was ranked as one of the world’s worst airlines, had the lowest rate of mishandled bags at 0.15 per 100. However, as bags cost $75 on the airline, they had less than 500,000.
Key Takeaways
If an on-time flight is an essential for your trip, here are the key things to look for:
- Fly early!
- Don’t fly a budget airline.
- Look at flying into the smallest possible airport. If this isn’t viable, choose the area’s largest.
- Choose Delta
- Don’t fly American Airlines if you want to keep your bag.
Turquoise Skies 