The October on-time performance for North American carriers increased for a third month in a row, but the rate of increase eased a bit, according to Cirium’s latest monthly report. On-time percentage in October increased 2.8 percentage points to 80.1 percent compared with September’s 5.5 percentage-point increase to 77.3 percent.
All but two qualifying carriers showed month-over-month improvement: Southwest remained the same at 78.4 percent, and WestJet dropped 5.2 percentage points to 71.3 percent, one month after it was the carrier with the largest improvement.
This month, JetBlue gained the most, with a 9.9 percentage-point increase to 74.4 percent. The carrier, along with Air Canada, crossed above the 70 percent line as well after performing below that marker in September.
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Delta retained its first-place ranking with a 90.8 percent on-time performance, the first time a carrier broke above 90 percent since at least January 2022. United Airlines was second with 86.3 percent, followed by Alaska Airlines with 86.1 percent.
Delta also topped the global on-time performance list, while United was fourth and American Airlines was sixth with 85.5 percent.
North American airlines in October canceled 4,656 flights, a 52.7 percent decrease from September.
Each of the top five North American carriers in the rankings had a completion factor above 99 percent, led by Delta at nearly 100 percent (99.85 percent).
A flight is considered on time if the aircraft arrives at the gate within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival time.
