Delta, United, Alaska tops in North America for on-time performance

Many travelers have experienced delays at one point or another while flying. 

A recently-released report from Cirium identified 2024’s top performers among airlines globally and regionally when it came to operating on-time flights.

For North American airlines, Delta Airlines and nine other carriers appeared on the aviation analytics company’s 2024 list of "Top 10 Winners" for punctuality. It considered flights that arrived within 15 minutes of their scheduled gate arrival time to be "on-time." 

The company’s "2024 On-Time Performance Review" report came just a day before JetBlue Airways agreed to pay a $2 million penalty to resolve Department of Transportation allegations that it "operated four chronically delayed flights at least 145 times between June 2022 through November 2023."

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The carrier told FOX Business it has "invested tens of millions of dollars to reduce flight delays, particularly related to ongoing air traffic control challenges" in the Northeast and Florida in recent years. 

"Through these efforts, we have seen significant operational improvements in 2024 including better on-time performance during this year’s peak summer travel season," JetBlue said. 

The airline also said it believes "accountability for reliable air travel equally lies with the U.S. government, which operates our nation’s air traffic control system," calling for the government to "prioritize modernizing outdated ATC technology" and to fix "chronic air traffic controller shortages," FOX Business previously reported.  

It ranked No. 7 for on-time flights on Cirium’s list for North America.

The five North American airlines that Cirium found to be the most on-time were: 

The Atlanta-based carrier notched a 83.46% on-time arrival rate for its flights in 2024, landing it first-place among North American airlines for the fourth back-to-back year, according to the report. Globally, it was No. 3. Cirium gave Delta, which was hit hard by the July Crowdstrike outage, a Platinum Award as well, with Delta Chief of Operations John Laughter saying, "It’s an honor to have Cirium once again recognize the hard work and operational excellence of Delta people."

United flights were on-time 80.93% of the time, Cirium found. Its No. 2 spot for 2024 out of the North American carriers marked a two-position jump from 2023, when it received fourth-place. In 2024, it also received the No. 10 spot in Cirium’s global rankings. 

The report said Alaska Airlines operated on-time flights 79.25% of the time in 2024. The carrier had a fleet of over 320 planes as of the end of October, according to its website. 

Fourth-place went to American Airlines in 2024. It operated more than 2.17 million flights, with an on-time arrival rate of 77.78% and a completion factor of 98.95%, according to Cirium. American is headquartered in Texas.

Cirium said Southwest operated on-time flights 77.77% of the time last year. There were over 1.45 million Southwest flights in 2024, the aviation analytics company reported. The carrier also ranked No. 5 for 2023. 

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Aeromexico, based in Mexico City, earned the No. 1 position in Cirium’s global rankings for airline punctuality. It flew on-time flights 86.70% of the time, according to the report. 

It has been operating for nine decades. In September, the company said it had flown more than 500 million people over the course of that time. 

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Globally, airlines will see 5.2 billion passengers on some 40 million flights in 2025, according to a projection from the International Air Transport Association.

Daniella Genovese contributed to this report.