After slipping for two months in a row, North American carriers’ average on-time performance turned around in August, increasing 6 percentage points from July to 71.8 percent, according to Cirium’s latest monthly report.
All but one of the qualifying carriers showed month-over-month improvement—Alaska Airlines dropped 0.5 percentage point to 81.5 percent for third place—and each carrier surpassed the 60 percent marker.
The carrier with the biggest gain was United Airlines, jumping 10.7 percentage points to 81.6 percent, putting it in second place behind Delta Air Lines at 82.8 percent. Frontier Airlines, JetBlue and Air Canada each improved 8.8 percentage points from July but remained in the bottom three slots.
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Delta and United each made the global on-time performance list, at fifth and seventh. In July, only Delta was included, at ninth.
North American airlines in August canceled 13,008 flights, a 38 percent decrease from July’s 21,131 cancellations.
Alaska had the highest completion factor at 99.7 percent, followed by United at 98.9 percent and American Airlines at 98.8 percent.
A flight is considered on time if the aircraft arrives at the gate within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival time.
