FlightStats July 2012 On-time Performance Report

North American flight cancellations up substantially from previous month

Story by Keith Gerr
08/09/2012 @ 5:28 AM

FlightStats, the undisputed leader in global flight and airport information services, releases it's July 2012 Airline and Airport On-time Performance Report. The report covers airlines and airports from North America, Europe and Asia (Middle Eastern airlines are reported on a quarterly basis).

North American airlines, on average, delivered 72.12% of their flights to the arrival gate within 15 minutes of schedule in July, down 3 percentage points from June's 75.73%.  Cancellations in July were noticeably up with 15,795 cancelled flights compared to 11,405 in June 2012.

North America's top 10 performing airlines and their on-time arrival percentages in July were:

QX    Horizon Air - 92.71% 
HA    Hawaiian Airlines - 88.79% 
CM    Copa Airlines - 88.54% 
AS    Alaska Airlines - 88.00% 
9M    Central Mountain Air - 87.72% 
JV    Bearskin Airlines - 84.81% 
CP    Compass Airlines - 85.58% 
TA    Taca Airlines - 83.04% 
8P    Pacific Coastal Airlines - 82.54% 
US    US Airways - 82.51%

Alaska Airlines, US Airways and Delta led the majors in July. Here's how the N. American major carriers on-time arrival percentages compared:

AS    Alaska Airlines - 88.00% 
US    US Airways - 82.51% 
DL    Delta Air Lines - 79.83% 
AA    American Airlines - 76.25% 
B6    Jetblue Airways - 75.67% 
WN    Southwest Airlines - 71.65% 
UA    United Airlines - 65.75% 
AC    Air Canada - 61.03%

Tokyo's Haneda outperformed the rest of the world's busiest airports by 15 percentage points. 5 US and 3 European airports rounded out the top 10 in July. The average on-time departure performance among the top 30 airports in July was 67.30%, down from 71.07% in June 2012.

The top 10 performers among the world's busiest airports were:

HND    Tokyo, JP     - 95.04% 
PHX    Phoenix, AZ - 80.71% 
AMS    Amsterdam, NL - 79.60% 
SYD    Sydney, AU - 78.55% 
CLT    Charlotte, NC - 78.51% 
MUC    Munich, DE - 78.22% 
LAX    Los Angeles, CA - 77.70% 
MCO    Orlando, FL - 77.00% 
FRA    Frankfurt, DE - 75.74% 
DFW    Dallas, TX - 74.99%

PDX, SLC and SEA outperformed their North American counterparts in July for the third month in a row with each managing over 85% on-time departures. The average on-time departure performance for the group in July was 74.82%, down considerably from June's 78.77%%. Here is a summary of the on-time departure performance for the 10 best performing large North American airports:

PDX    Portland, OR - 87.12% 
SLC    Salt Lake City, UT - 87.07% 
SEA    Seattle, WA - 85.50% 
MEM    Memphis, TN - 83.06% 
SAN    San Diego, CA     - 82.09% 
PHX    Phoenix, AZ - 80.71% 
MCI    Kansas City, MO - 80.69% 
YVR    Vancouver, BC, CA - 80.28% 
OAK    Oakland, CA - 79.67%

Smaller, regional European airlines once again turned in strong performances in July with Cimber, airBaltic and Czech Airlines leading the way. 9 European airlines we tracked delivered > 90% of their flights to the gate on time. The average OTP for the group was 81.42% in July, up from 80.93% in June.

The top ten on-time arrival performers among European carriers were:

QI    Cimber - 94.46% 
BT    airBaltic - 94.26% 
OK    CSA Czech Airlines - 93.27% 
KF    Blue1 - 93.11% 
DB    Brit Air - 92.14% 
4U    Germanwings - 92.06% 
AY    Finnair - 91.03% 
WA    KLM Cityhopper    - 90.38% 
A3    Aegean Airlines - 90.04% 
LG    Luxair - 89.77%

Hokkaido International, Tiger Airways, SpiceJet and IndiGo airlines joined JAL, ANA and their subsidiaries to capture the top 10 on-time performance positions in July. The average on-time performance rating among the 38 airlines we analyzed in July was 66.96%, down considerably from June's 73.76%.

Here are the top ten's on-time arrival percentage numbers :

XM1    J-Air     - 94.11% 
JC    JAL Express - 93.93% 
HD    Hokkaido Int'l - 92.32% 
TR    Tiger Airways - 92.10% 
JL    Japan Airlines - 92.00% 
EH    ANA Wings - 91.10% 
6E    IndiGo Airlines - 89.59% 
NU    Japan Transocean Air - 89.55% 
NH    ANA - 89.47% 
SG    SpiceJet - 86.55%

For daily trends in airline and airport delay and cancellations, go to the FlightStats Global Tracker

For the results of the FlightStats 2011 On-time Performance Awards go here