Delta Air Lines became only the fourth-most on-time airline in the U.S. last month, according to data from aviation analytics company Cirium. Their January statistics are out:
- Delta was behind Southwest – the on-time leader – along with Alaska Airlines which perennially performs near the top. Spirit Airlines also beat out Delta in January.
- Notably, Delta also cancelled a higher percentage of flights than those carriers as well.
- United and American followed right behind Delta, with all of these arriving on-time at least 80% of the time. (American, which was more affected by weather in January, cancelled more flights than other North American carriers.)
- JetBlue and Frontier were bottom-performers among U.S. carriers, as they often are. And Canadian airlines fared worse, which is also consistent with expectations.
In Europe, Iberia, Vueling, and ITA outperformed while Lufthansa was worst.
The most on-time airports often correspond to on-time airlines. Airline operations influence performance a lot, and a region’s weather does too.
Globally, the most on-time airport was Honolulu, which is usually shielded from the weather. Always a leader, Alaska Airlines is likely to improve on-time statistics thanks to their acquisition of Hawaiian and operations from the islands.
Honolulu
Nine of the top 15 most on-time large airports were in the U.S.
Due to Alaska operating in hubs with favorable weather (e.g. Anchorage.) Additionally – the ground experience while delayed is far more premium on Delta.
I recognize this update is specific to January 2025. However, once the annual consumer ratings from the DOT reflect complaints following the ‘Crowdstrike’ outage in July 2024, Delta is going to take a major hit on that one. Ironically, Southwest had a similar technology ‘scheduling crisis’ in December 2022, so clearly they rebounded (not so sure about their financials these days though). But each airline rebounded its operations, so far. I still prefer flying on Delta than Southwest.
it all kinds down to geography of where hubs are located. All of the big 3 have major operations in the NE and those hubs always perform worse in the winter.
Life is not a sprint but a marathon and the system numbers will be rearranged on an annual basis..
the systemwide difference in on-time between #1 WN and #6 AA was less than 3 points which is a pretty small difference to overcome on a larger scale.
And, no, 1990, DL did not take a hit on an annual basis in 2024 because of CrowdStrike. The DOT has already released data for well past the July CRWD impact and DL sits at the #2 on-time airline behind HA and that difference is only 1.4% on a YTD basis through Oct.
The real takeaways from airline on-time trends are that WN cancels a very low percentage of flights but also does not have the on-time of DL with UA right behind DL but better than AA.
AS, which used to be one of the top performers, is now just mid-tier in on-time behind DL, UA and WN. AS will be helped some by HA but SEA is increasingly a very congested airport and AS’ on-time will continue to suffer as it tries to push more traffic through SEA.
B6 has seen some improvement in on-time at certain times of the year but they are more impacted than DL or even DL regional carriers at BOS, NYC and FLL.
In cancellation rates, the big 3 plus WN and even B6 cancel less than 1% of their flights outside of major weather events of issues like the MAX 9 grounding – which impacted AS and UA – or CRWD. And as much as some people want to believe otherwise, UA also had thousands of cancellations due to CRWD – it just took longer for DL to recover.
And in all of the other metrics that the DOT measures, DL still handedly runs the best total operation which is why the Wall Street Journal and crunched 2024’s numbers using private sector data (the DOT has not released 2024 data completely yet) and said that DL is the US’ best airline from an operational standpoint.
@Tim Dunn — As always, I appreciate your superior knowledge on cyclical, seasonal affects operational reliability based on carrier-hub-geography.
On Delta’s ratings, if true, that’s quite impressive, because affected passengers following Crowdstrike absolutely submitted a lot of complaints to the DOT. At least the airline supposedly offered to reimburse for alternative transportation, either because the DOT required them to, or because Ed and the Board finally realized they needed to ‘do more’ than a gift of 4K SkyPesos.
Has there ever been a month that the joke of an airline that is AC hasnt been the worst in ontime?
1990
the DOT has not released consumer complaint statistics for July 2024 yet and DL likely will see a spike.
The DOT no longer releases the reason for the complaint – just the total number of complaints and they don’t even create percentages relative to number of passengers boarded.
DL recovered very quickly from CRWD and CRWD had a small impact to DL’s operation relative to the entire year. As much as some people want to blow the impact of CRWD to DL out of proportion, DL simply runs so much better of an operation day in and day out while other airlines have their own operational issues on an ongoing basis on top of the other major operational issues such as the MAX 9 grounding as well as other airlines’ impact from CRWD that did impact their numbers.
and from a financial standpoint, DL still ended up as the most profitable US airline in the 3rd quarter even though it took a $500 million hit and also pays its employees at the top of the industry. AA and UA have not fully done that but AA is closer than UA to industry -leading pay for all employee groups. WN has moved to lift its employees’ pay to industry -leading which is part of why their profits have struggled.
One big major unexpected event at a major hub can destroy on time and completion rates. Particularly DL that has a massive operation at ATL. ATL had significant unusual winter weather in January at ATL. AA has two big hubs in DFW and CLT so there’s a bit of smoothing out of the curb if weather hits either.
@Tim Dunn — Well, Tim, that’s what I was talking about, originally!
No way to sugarcoat it: Delta’s gonna get a shellacking in that report! And the underlying reason (for increase in complaints) is most certainly from their aftermath Crowdstrike for that period. Compared to others, DL really struggled with that, taking an extra week or two to rebound.
That said, as a Diamond, I’m obviously still a huge fan of the airline. Thank goodness they haven’t had any further episodes like that. It happens to the best of us, I guess.
On their financials, a $500 million hit is no small deal, but glad you still have confidence, because I got a lot of money on-the-line with them, and certainly prefer them to stick-around.
Yeah, I like when workers get paid well, but Delta (the corporation) has so far succeed in preventing unionization for the flight attendants–personally, I still can’t get over that absurd union-busting ‘ad’ about using the money that would go to ‘dues’ on video games instead, from 2019. Also, airlines should pay crews for their ‘time on the ground.’ But, hey, we can’t possibly solve all these problems among ourselves, can we?
@ Tim — Yes, Delta slowly screws over its customers though daily micro-devaluations of SkyMiles.
Gene,
you say the same thing over and over again and yet SkyMiles continues to be the the most valuable US loyalty plan and other airlines are copying DL.
You just haven’t figured out how to get the value out of SkyMiles that others are capable of doing.
1990,
DL consistently has lower complaints than other airlines and, because of the way the DOT now handles complaints and the delay they take to process them, no carrier puts much stake in DOT complaints as was the case before.
as for unionization, it comes down to simply paying your people at or above industry-leading levels.
DL took the lead both with its unionized pilots and its non-union rest of employees (other than small groups such as dispatchers and meteorologists) in lifting pay post covid to levels that other airlines are struggling to meet w/o eroding their profitability. DL is generating the profits it is while still paying its employees as much as it does.
And the reason it makes as much money as it does is because it has figured out where its network needs to be the strongest in order to attract the most corporate and business travel – which DL leads the US carriers in handling. and it is high revenue customers that matter to Amex and other credit card companies.
Ultimately, customers forgave the CRWD mess because DL quickly returned to its strong position.
and the January mess including the southern snow storms hurt DL’s operation but they did not melt down which indicates to an even greater degree that the CRWD mess was IT related beyond DL’s ability to control. During the southern snow storms, one of the two runways which ATL cleared of snow was blocked by a disabled DL aircraft which is theorized to have ingested debris that the city did not push far enough from the runway after plowing it.
@ Tim — You are delusional. Delta has nothing near “the most valuable” loyalty program. Maybe to the theiving executives, but certainly not to those pesky paying passengers.
@ Tim — Oh, and you have no clue what/who you are talking about. I have gotten the best value possible from my SkyMiles (albeit, that “value” is pretty lame).
well, yes, Gene.
SkyMiles most certainly generates the most revenue and is valued more than any other airline loyalty program.
You continue to see the world through your scratched lenses and cannot admit that other airlines are following DL’s lead in the loyalty world and not the other way around.
@Tim Dunn — I respect your analysis. I’ll admit, I am biased in favor of Delta, since they have served me well for four decades. Hope they will ‘keep climbing’ as they say.
1990
some people can’t understand that the world doesn’t revolve around them and for-profit businesses do what is in their interest – and not those of their customers.
every customer gets to choose where they spend their money but the industry is moving toward the models that DL has developed and, to a great extent, perfects better than its competitors.
It is most notable that Ben over at OMAAT says he is not chasing AA status to the degree he once did. People are realizing that there really are a relatively small number of people that can achieve the highest levels of any loyalty program and yet many people thought it was worth chasing by jumping through a million hoops.
If you truly spend lots of revenue at one airline and are willing to use one of their credit cards, you will have no problem getting the highest status and also having lots of opportunities to redeem miles.
but airlines are increasingly recognizing that they are most profitable by not discounting their most premium products either via fares or loyalty awards and the people that will “pay the freight” are the people the most successful airlines want to pursue, reward and retain.
I don’t see how a 1% or 2% difference in ontime performance has any significant impact.
@ Tim — This is totally backwards — “there really are a relatively small number of people that can achieve the highest levels of any loyalty program.” The problem is that a huge number of peple attain top status, but some smart people have/are realizing that the lying, theiving airlines offer bait and switch “top” tiers. For example, it seems that everyone at Delta is Diamond so there are no real benefits anyomre. Only an idiot would continue to play that game, and with US airlines being so vastly inferior to their foreign competitors, only an idiot would pay cash for J on AA, UA and DL.
Gene,
the highest tiers as they NOW exist after the big readjustments IS much rarer air.
See Gary’s latest article.
The same bickering blowhards that troll every one of these articles. Lacking grace and self awareness. And are self appointed experts on the aviation industry.
@Tim Dunn — I understand the ‘let the free market decide’ mentality, but it’s just not that ‘free’ anymore with varying degrees of regulatory capture and monopolization in this and other industries. That said, there’s always something ‘nice’ for those willing to pay for it.
I follow Ben as well, and share his sentiments. Was EP for several years, drifting down to Platinum Pro this March. No big loss. Much of that for me was earned thanks to crediting QR, but I also flew plenty of AA metal–quality has notably diminished over the years (only exception is the Soho and Chelsea lounges at JFK, really). Their cabin upgrades cannot come soon enough. Some of Gary’s recent posts on AA have been quite telling as well (on the A321T, yikes).
How much is your take for writing articles bashing Delta?
Not once in 2024 you made a post about on-time arrivals, yet the first month Delta is not the first of the US3, here’s a full post.
@Tim Dunn, can you please start a blog? You always have great analysis that deserves its platform.