There’s a problem with all such data: What is the definition of an on-time flight?
Per U.S. Department of Transportation rules – and the global standard for reporting on time performance among airlines – a flight is still considered to have arrived on time so long as it arrives at its gate less than 15 minutes after its scheduled arrival time. Thus, a flight that docks 14 minutes and 59 seconds after its published arrival time is counted as being “on time” even though everyone on board that flight undoubtedly, and accurately, believes the flight arrived late.
The resulting loss of time efficiency costs airlines lots more money in terms of fuel burned and employee salaries plus lots of extra gates and planes needed to operate their artificially slowed and elongated schedules.
“An airline’s A-0 on time performance generally runs about 15 percentage points lower than its A-14 on time performance,” Baiada says. “A-0” refers to an arrival zero minutes after the flight’s published arrival time, while “A-14” refers to an arrival time that is less than 15 minutes later than a flight’s published arrival time.
Most U.S. carriers’ have seen relatively significant improvements of 5 percentage points or more in their official annual on-time performance numbers in recent years. But critics like Baiada question how much of that improvement in their on-time performance stems from simply adding more time to schedule flight durations as opposed to making real improvements in operational efficiency.
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