OAG recently revealed its “Punctuality League 2023,” a ranking of the most punctual airports and airlines in the world. Delta finished 2022 as the most punctual airline in the U.S. with an on-time performance (OTP) of 81.79 percent and an extremely low cancelation rate of just 0.01 percent. Following Delta, the four most punctual U.S. airlines were Alaska Airlines (79.13 percent), United Airlines (79.10 percent), American Airlines (77.38 percent) and Hawaiian Airlines (75.80 percent).
That said, Delta was the only airline of the bunch to appear on the list of the 20 most punctual airlines globally—and it ranked 17th. The top five overall were Garuda Indonesia, Safair, Eurowings, Thai AirAsia and Jeju Airlines. Among the “Mega Airlines,” however, All Nippon Airways (88.79 percent) came out on top; it was followed by Japan Airlines (88.07 percent), LATAM Airlines Group (85.03 percent), Azul Airlines (84.87 percent) and IndiGo (83.51 percent). Delta, Alaska, United, American and Spirit Airlines placed sixth through tenth on the list, in order. Southwest Airlines (73.18 percent) claimed 13th, while JetBlue (63.90 percent) nabbed 18th place. Among low-cost carriers, Spirit, Southwest and Frontier Airlines (71.61 percent) ranked 13th,14th and 18th, respectively.
When it comes to the airports with the best OTP, Japan is home to 10 of the top 20; the United States had zero representatives. Osaka International was the most punctual airport in the world in 2022 with 91.45 percent of flights arriving on time. Considering just the “Mega Airports,” Japan still takes the crown with Tokyo Haneda International Airport boasting an OTP of 88.06 percent. Following, in order, were nine U.S. airports: Atlanta-Hartsfield Jackson (80.08 percent) ranked as the second most on-time “Mega Airport” in the world, followed by Seattle-Tacoma International (79.98 percent), Houston George Bush Intercontinental (79.72 percent), Charlotte Douglas International (79.59 percent), Los Angeles International (78.63 percent), Chicago O’Hare (77.86 percent), Phoenix Sky Harbor International (76.80 percent), Dallas-Fort Worth (76.15 percent) and Miami International (73.97 percent).
New York’s LaGuardia and JFK International Airport ranked 13th and 15th, respectively, while Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas ranked 14th and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey was 17th.
Methodology: OAG’s definition of on-time performance (OTP) includes scheduled passenger flights that arrive or depart within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival or departure times. Cancelations are included within the OTP calculations and are counted as late flights.
Mega airlines/airports are defined as the world’s top 20 operators/airports in terms of scheduled flights in 2022. Low-cost carriers must have ranked among the top 250 operators globally (in terms of Available Seat Kilometers) and operated at least 30,000 scheduled flights in 2022.
Airport OTP is calculated based on both departures and arrivals data.
Source: OAG
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