List of the least on-time airlines in the world in 2024 has been revealed and some might surprise you
Topics: Travel
Joe Yates
Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images
Topics: Travel
Arriving at the airport two hours before your flight only to discover it is delayed is one of the most frustrating things in life.
You've done your part yet for whatever reason the airline you've just given hundreds of bucks to has let you down on their side... although the majority of the time you fly on-time.
Anyway, aviation analytics provider Cirium has crunched the numbers to provide us with the stats of 2024 to back up the top airlines in the world - and listed the top 10 in North America.
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If you're Canadian, this might not be an easy read... so, before we dive into the carriers who have a tendency for lateness, let's look at the airlines with the most cancellations.
American Airlines leads the way in that respect with 28,649 flights canceled in 2024 - although they chartered by far the most amount of flights, with a total of 2,177,418, which works out at 1.31 percent of their flights getting axed.
It's not a bad statistic at all.
Meanwhile, out of the 386,082 flights Air Canada took, 10,816 were canceled, or 2.8 percent. At the bottom of Cirium's list falls Cape Air, an airline which started in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Shockingly, it cancels around one in 17 flights - of its 83,101 flights last year, 5,069 were canceled, or 6 percent.
Now, let's talk about the 'top 10 winners' from the North American airlines.
It's notable that Cape Air didn't make the list, but Delta Air Lines came out on top. In fact, it was ranked the third best in the world when it comes to arriving on-time.
Of its 1,712,529 flights, 83.46 percent of them arrived on-time - which is defined as a flight that arrives within 15 minutes of the scheduled gate arrival.
United Airlines took second place with 80.93 percent of its 1,615,085 arriving on-time, while Alaska Airlines ranked third with 79.25 percent of the 432,871 flights also arriving on-time
Now, at the bottom of the list featured the only two Canadian airlines to make the cut.
Frontier Airlines, of Denver, came in at eight with 71.57 percent of its 221,171 arriving on-time, while Air Canada saw just 71.36 percent of its 385,703 do so.
In last place - although again it's worth noting that it still made the cut of the top 10 best airlines in North America in terms of arriving on-time - is WestJet, of Calgary in Canada, which saw only 70.99 percent of its 192,084 flights reach their destination on time.
Explaining why Cape Air canceled so many flights last year, a spokesperson for the airline said: "Cape Air is deeply committed to providing safe, reliable, and punctual service to our passengers.
"Unfortunately, the data pulled from Circium includes flights canceled due to weather along with flights that were canceled over the course of the year due to several unexpected runway construction projects.
"In addition, also included in the flight cancelation number are flights that we remove close-in due to zero passenger bookings."
They continued: "Cape Air is a steward of sustainability and environmentally responsible decision-making, ensuring that we will not fly an empty plane, and that sometimes results in a deleted flight. This high cancelation rate doesn’t always correlate to a passenger impact.
"We strive to minimize cancellations wherever possible and continue to work closely with our partners to improve the efficiency of our operations.
"When we pull our controllable completion factor which is inclusive of cancelations within our control for the full year 2024 that gives us a 99.3 percent completion rate, or 0.7 percent cancelation."
UNILAD also contacted WestJet, Frontier Airlines and Air Canada for comment.