If you’re thinking a Canadian airline is among North America’s most punctual air carriers, think again.
In fact, none of Canada’s airlines appear to have made a new ranking of the top 10 most punctual North American carriers of 2022, compiled by global air industry data tracking firm OAG. Its Punctuality League 2023 report saw America’s Delta Air Lines take the top spot for the North American rankings, with Alaska Airlines, United Airlines, American Airlines and Hawaiian airlines rounding out the top five. Spirit Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Frontier Airlines, JetBlue and Allegiant rounded out the list.
And while Air Canada just managed to crack a separate OAG punctuality list, no other Canadian carriers did.
OAG released its 2023 report earlier this week, revealing which airlines and airports were among the world’s most punctual for 2022 — a year that saw much of the global travel industry reboot as COVID-19 restrictions eased.
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OAG cut up its punctuality rankings into multiple lists: top 20 airlines worldwide, top 20 mega airlines, top 20 low-cost airlines, top 10 airlines by region, top 20 airports worldwide, top 20 mega airports and the top 10 airports by region.
OAG said that in order to qualify for the report, the agency must have flight status data for at least 80 per cent of all scheduled flights operated by the airline or airport. OAG’s definition of on-time performance (OTP) is flights that arrive or depart within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival or departure times. Cancellations were included within the OTP calculations and are counted as late flights.
No Canadian airport managed to rank.
Air Canada cracked into the top 20 mega airline list — ranking at the 20th spot with an on-time percentage of 52 per cent. Air Canada had a cancellation rate of five per cent last year. OAG compared the carrier with its rank in 2019, which saw it in the same spot.
At the time, Air Canada had an on-time percentage calculation of 66 per cent.
Air Canada executives were among multiple airline heads on Parliament Hill on Thursday, answering questions from MPs during a meeting of the House of Commons’ transportation committee on recent delays over the holidays.
Executives laid blame on a major winter storm that played out across the country just before the Christmas holidays, creating conditions that made flying impossible. Despite that, Air Canada said in a December operational update it flew about 17,000 flights, averaging nearly 1,000 daily flights or approximately one departure every 90 seconds each day between Dec. 22 to Jan. 8.
Its daily flight completion rate was 91.5 per cent, and its international flight completion rate was 98.3 per cent. Air Canada carried 2.18 million customers during that timeframe, and had 35,681 employees — more than 1,000 more than in December 2019 when it had 34,653 employees.
Air Canada also made headlines in the summer when it announced it would be cutting its flight schedule in July and August to handle flight delays and airport congestions. Up until that point, airports worldwide were experiencing a travel surge as COVID-19 restrictions for travellers loosened up in many countries.
Among the top 20 mega airlines in the world, Japan takes the top spot with All Nippon Airways ranked first with an on-time percentage of 88.79 per cent, followed by Japan Airlines with 88.07 per cent.
Five U.S. carriers round out the Top 10 with Delta Air Lines sitting sixth with 81.79 per cent of flights on-time.
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Among the top 20 most punctual mega airports in the world, Tokyo Haneda took the top spot. Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International ranked second and Seattle-Tacoma International sat third.
The data firm suggested the number of flights on-time is slowly recovering after the instability and disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Global on-time performance is reaching levels last seen before the pandemic as carriers work to ease operational pressures and delays,” said John Grant, chief analyst at OAG, in a news release.
“Confidence in the travel recovery is growing with airlines placing new aircraft orders, new routes being announced and labor challenges seemingly subsiding.”
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