Research from Cirium shows Southwest slipping to fifth place

Delta Air Lines recaptured its position as most on-time airline in North America in March, according to the latest report from Cirium, an aviation analytics provider. Southwest Airlines had led in on-time performance (OTP) the previous two months.

Delta’s month-over-month performance improved by 2.2 percentage points to 82.8%, while Southwest’s dropped 1.3 percentage points to 81%, putting it in fifth place. United Airlines was second at 82.5%, while Spirit rounded out the top three at 81.7%.

The on-time average for March increased 4.8 percentage points month over month to 79.5%. The jump for Air Canada from 60% to 75% in February helped pull up the average.

• None of the North American carriers made the March list of top-performing global carriers, which was led by Saudia at 94.1%.

• Five out of the nine reporting carriers had March completion factors of at least 99%, led by Spirit at 99.6% and followed by Delta, Southwest, Alaska Airlines and United.

• In March, North American carriers canceled 9,554 flights, down from nearly 13,600 in February.

• A flight is considered on time if the aircraft arrives at the gate within 15 minutes of its scheduled arrival time.

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