After a four-month streak of monthly improvements, the average on-time performance for North American carriers in December dropped to 79.1 percent compared with November’s 81.9 percent, according to Cirium’s latest report.
Every carrier’s score declined in December from the month before. Delta in December once again took the top spot with an on-time score of 89.6 percent and was followed by United Airlines (85.8 percent) and American Airlines (84.3 percent). (Delta also was Cirium’s most on-time North American airline for 2023 at 84.7 percent.)
JetBlue had the steepest decline at 6 percentage points to 71 percent. Spirit slipped the least with a 1.3 percentage-point drop to 73.8 percent.
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Delta also took the top spot on the list of most on-time global carriers. United came in third with American at fourth. No other North American carrier landed in the global top 10.
North American airlines in December canceled nearly 4,750 flights, up about 79 percent month over month. The top three U.S. carriers, along with Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines, each had completion factors above 99 percent for December, led by American at nearly 99.9 percent, according to Cirium.
A flight is considered on time if the aircraft arrives at the gate within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival time.
