All U.S. airways with a market share larger than 0.5% are required by legislation to report on-time efficiency, delay occasions, and causes of delay for every flight.
The chart beneath exhibits the odds of on-time, late, or canceled flights from every airline in 2022 and 2023.
| Airways ranked by share of delay in 2023 | ||
| Airline firm | % Delayed to 2022 | % Delayed to 2023 |
| Republic airline | 15.8% | 11.9% |
| Endeavor Aria | 14.0% | 14.1% |
| SkyWest Airways | 15.2% | 14.9% |
| PSA airways | 16.9% | 14.9% |
| Air Envoy | 15.2% | 16.8% |
| Alaska Airways | 17.4% | 18.9% |
| Delta Airways | 16.4% | 20.0% |
| United Airways | 19.6% | 23.6% |
| American Airways | 21.1% | 24.1% |
| Hawaiian Airways | 21.1% | 25.1% |
| Allied Air | 29.4% | 25.5% |
| South West Airways | 27.9% | 26.5% |
| Spirit Airways | 23.1% | 31.1% |
| JetBlue Airways | 31.3% | 31.2% |
| Border Airways | 31.1% | 34.9% |
Amongst all home flights, 24.1% have been delayed or canceled in 2023 (delay means departure quarter-hour or extra after the scheduled time). The general common departure time was 14.43 minutes after the scheduled time.
Most punctual airline: Republic Airline
Republic Airline has the perfect on-time efficiency amongst all main U.S. airways in 2023. With solely 11.9% of flights departing late, Republic Airline is performing about 10% higher than the nationwide common. This can be a notable enchancment in comparison with 2022, when the Republic skilled delays in 15.8% of flights.
Republic Airline flights additionally depart 10 minutes sooner than common, simply 4.67 minutes later than scheduled.
Curiously, despite the fact that it has the perfect on-time departure charge, Republic has the worse flight cancellation charge, with 3.32% of flights canceled in 2023.
Airline with probably the most delays: Frontier Airways
Frontier is the worst. A dismal 34.9% of Frontier home flights departed on the finish of 2023. Which means properly over a 3rd of Frontier flights depart greater than quarter-hour late or are canceled. The typical Frontier flight departure time is 29.43 minutes after scheduled time.
Flight delays at giant and small airways
Curiously, the highest 5 airways by on-time share in 2023 are all fairly small, with lower than 3% of the market share. All however SkyWest have lower than 1.5% of the market share.
The worst performing airways (Frontier, JetBlue and Spirit) are additionally within the smallest vary, though bigger than the highest airways by way of on-time efficiency.
The “Massive 4” US airways (Delta Air Strains, American Airways, United Airways and Southwest Airways) are all in the course of the pack. Perhaps it is logical although. Since giant air carriers function an enormous quantity of flights, for causes of scale, their efficiency is certain to get near the nationwide common.
Alternatively, smaller airways usually tend to be outliers just because they do not have the identical quantity and variety of flights.
Of the massive 4, Delta Air Strains carried out greatest with 78.6% of Delta-operated home flights departing on time. Delta additionally has one of many lowest flight cancellation charges, simply 1.41%.
The nation’s fifth largest airline by income, Alaska Airways is the biggest airline to have an on-time charge higher than 80% in 2023.
Low-cost airways and delays
Maybe unsurprisingly funds airways fare worse in relation to delayed flights. The ultimate 4 carriers in 2023 – Southwest Airways, Spirit Airways, JetBlue Airways and Frontier Airways – are all low-cost carriers.
There are a lot of explanations for why funds airways expertise extra delays. These embody staffing issues, inadequate upkeep and fewer environment friendly operations.
Alternatively, there may be proof to show it Low-cost airways have an total optimistic affect on an airport’s on-time efficiency.
A research by Ha V. Pham on the Division of Economics on the College of Virginia discovered that airports with the very best share of low-cost airline flights have shorter delay occasions.
I am going to say it one other means. If an airport has extra low-cost airline flights, the typical delay time for All flights from that airport are decrease.
This may occasionally appear counterintuitive, however Pham’s analysis means that low-cost airways’ fast method frees up airport sources that can be utilized by different airways.