U.S. carriers operated more than 623,400 flights in March 2024, a nearly 2.5 percent increase year over year and a 13.5 percent increase month over month, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s latest Air Travel Consumer Report.
The March cancellation rate, however, inched up to 0.9 percent after dipping a bit in February to 0.6 percent. The rate, however, is lower than the 1.3 percent reported in March 2023.
The carriers with the lowest rates of canceled flights included Delta Air Lines network (0.2 percent), Hawaiian Airlines (0.6 percent) and Allegiant Air (0.6 percent). Those with the highest percentages of canceled flights were Frontier Airlines (2.7 percent), Spirit Airlines (1.7 percent) and JetBlue (1.4 percent). Networks include branded codeshare partners.
For March, carriers handled 43.1 million bags and posted a mishandled baggage rate of 0.52 percent, higher than the 0.48 percent reported in February, but lower than the rate of 0.58 percent reported in March 2023.
DOT continues to work on its new system for reporting customer complaints and did not include that information in the March report. It anticipates publishing complaint numbers for June 1, 2023, to Dec. 31, 2023, in June 2024.
