Research from Cirium shows Air Canada leading carrier

On-time performance (OTP) for North American airlines fell 4.4 percentage points (ppts) month over month in May to 76.4%, according to the latest data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company.

Air Canada, which in recent months has typically been in the bottom third of reporting carriers, ranked on top in May with an OTP of 79.1%, 0.7 ppts below its April average. Its decline was the lowest month over month among North American carriers. 

Delta Air Lines was second at 79%, down 4.9 ppts. Alaska Airlines was third at 78.7%, down 4.1 percentage points from April.

Each of the 10 reporting carriers saw declines in May compared with their April OTP. Spirit, last month’s leader, had the largest drop of 7.5 ppts to 75.8%, followed by JetBlue,  with a drop of 6.5 ppts to 76.3%.

All but one carrier had a May on-time performance average of at least 75%. Frontier was last, with 69.9%. 

None of the North American carriers was among the top global airlines for May OTP, which again was led by SAS (89.7%) and had a weighted average of 86.1%.

Three North American carriers had May flight completion factors above 99%: Alaska (99.6%), Delta (99.4%) and WestJet (99.1%). In May, North American cancellations reached 10,576, higher than the 6,645 in April.

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