On-Time Airlines

[Navy1960]

The 19 largest U.S. carriers tracked by the Transportation Dept. saw their on-time performance improve in September to 86.2%, up from last September’s 84.9%.

It also was a good month for the airlines in terms of the much-publicized tarmac delays–.0001 percent of their scheduled flights had tarmac delays of three hours or more, down from .012 percent in August.

According to DOT’s Air Travel Consumer Report, Hawaiian had the best on-time performance at 94.1%, followed by Alaska (90%), Southwest (89.1%) and Frontier (89.1%). The worst performance was seen by Atlantic Southeast (72.2%), which has been in 18th or 19th place for most of this year.

Atlantic Southeast also had the worst mishandled bag percentage, with 6.12 reports of mishandled bags for every 1,000 passengers. AirTran, Frontier and Hawaiian had the best bag performance, in that order.
DOT: Sept. On-Time Performance Improves | AVIATION WEEK

 

[Polk]

Isn't air traffic down? If so, I'd imagine that has a positive impact.

 

[Navy1960]

Polk;

The number of scheduled domestic and international passengers on U.S. airlines in June 2009 declined by 6.2 percent from June 2008, dropping by 4.2 million to 63.6 million, the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reported. June was the 15th consecutive month with a decrease in passengers from the prior year.

Top Travel News - June Air Traffic Down for the 15th Consecutive Month

Your correct it is down, and generally speaking that will have an effect on overall on-time performance. I thought it interesting though that the same airlines are always in the top performers when it comes to this catagory, which speaks to operational capability. The larger carriers i.e. NW/Delta, American, United, etc. are amazing examples of over capacity, poor management, and bloated legacy operations that keep them at the bottom constantly.

 

[Navy1960]

Polk;

The number of scheduled domestic and international passengers on U.S. airlines in June 2009 declined by 6.2 percent from June 2008, dropping by 4.2 million to 63.6 million, the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reported. June was the 15th consecutive month with a decrease in passengers from the prior year.

Top Travel News - June Air Traffic Down for the 15th Consecutive Month

Your correct it is down, and generally speaking that will have an effect on overall on-time performance. I thought it interesting though that the same airlines are always in the top performers when it comes to this catagory, which speaks to operational capability. The larger carriers i.e. NW/Delta, American, United, etc. are amazing examples of over capacity, poor management, and bloated legacy operations that keep them at the bottom constantly.

 

[blastoff]

Unless things have changed the airlines, aided and abetted by the FAA, have a funny way of tracking on time departures and arrivals.

If a plane departs the gate on time it's logged as an on time departure. The fact that it could then get stuck in tarmack delays long enough for passengers to miss connections, appointments, etc. as a result of an ensuing late arrival at its destination is immaterial.

Similar situation with arrivals. They're logged at touchdown but if delays on the ground have the plane eventualy arriving at its gate later than scheduled it's still logged as on time, assuming touchdown was at or before that scheduled time.

 

[Navy1960]

True enough, on-time is a very loose and I do say loose measurement of performance of an Airline. I was however using this as way to spur debate on the topic of Airlines in general and to spark some interest in the subject.

 

[Polk]

Polk;

The number of scheduled domestic and international passengers on U.S. airlines in June 2009 declined by 6.2 percent from June 2008, dropping by 4.2 million to 63.6 million, the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reported. June was the 15th consecutive month with a decrease in passengers from the prior year.

Top Travel News - June Air Traffic Down for the 15th Consecutive Month

Your correct it is down, and generally speaking that will have an effect on overall on-time performance. I thought it interesting though that the same airlines are always in the top performers when it comes to this catagory, which speaks to operational capability. The larger carriers i.e. NW/Delta, American, United, etc. are amazing examples of over capacity, poor management, and bloated legacy operations that keep them at the bottom constantly.

Yeah, that's true. I just wondering about the impact of traffic.