US Airline Delay Statistics – Analyzed by TravelFreak

Flight delays are a seemingly endless subject within the airline trade. In 2023 to this point, almost 1 / 4 of US home flights arrived late or had been canceled.

In most industries such a excessive delay fee could be thought-about unacceptable, however in air journey, delays are tolerated and even anticipated, though they trigger missed connections, misplaced baggage, and extra bills.

I compiled information from 1987-2023 from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics into a large spreadsheet to carry out an in-depth information evaluation of flight information. From right here, I extracted a collection of findings, together with:

• Causes of airline delays
• Most and least delayed airways, airports, and states
• The influence of funds airways on flight delays
• Airline delay efficiency over time

Key US Airline Delay Statistics

• Most airline delays in 2022-2023 had been attributable to the airline, not unhealthy climate, closed runways, or air visitors controllers.
• Over a 3rd of delayed flights are attributable to a series response of delays for an plane earlier in its journey.
• Frontier is the most-delayed airline, with almost 35% of flights departing late in 2023.
• Republic Airline had the fewest delays in 2023: solely 12% of Republic flights had been over quarter-hour late.
• The Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Worldwide Airport (FLL) is the worst main airport for canceled or delayed flights. Over a 3rd of flights from FLL had been delayed or canceled in 2023.
• The Minneapolis-St. Paul Worldwide Airport (MSN) was one of the best main airport for delayed flights, with over 80% of flights leaving on time.
• Small regional airports in Idaho and Montana have one of the best on-time efficiency within the nation.
• Mississippi is the state with the bottom delay proportion, at simply 14%.
• Delaware had an abysmal 55% of flights delayed in 2022, although no information is offered for 2023.

Airline Delay Causes

Beginning in 2003, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics started requiring main airways to report the explanation for delayed flights. Every delayed flight is assigned a code referring to one in all 5 delay causes.

Listed here are the definitions of the delay causes in accordance with the Bureau of Transportation Statistics:

• CarrierDelay: The reason for the cancellation or delay was as a result of circumstances inside the airline’s management (e.g. upkeep or crew issues, plane cleansing, baggage loading, fueling, and so forth.).
• WeatherDelay: Important meteorological circumstances (precise or forecasted) that, within the judgment of the service, delays or prevents the operation of a flight, akin to a twister, blizzard, or hurricane.
• NASDelay: Delays and cancellations attributable to the nationwide aviation system that discuss with a broad set of circumstances, akin to non-extreme climate circumstances, airport operations, heavy visitors quantity, and air visitors management.
• LateAircraftDelay: A earlier flight with the identical plane arrived late, inflicting the current flight to depart late.
• SecurityDelay: Delays or cancellations attributable to evacuation of a terminal or concourse, re-boarding of plane due to safety breach, inoperative screening gear, and/or lengthy strains in extra of 29 minutes at screening areas.

Moreover, for the reason that NAS class is kind of broad, it’s divided into extra particular causes:

• Climate: Non-emergency weather-caused delays
• Quantity: Delays attributable to air visitors controllers as a result of quantity of flights
• Gear: Delays attributable to issues with gear
• Closed Runway: Delays attributable to a runway closed as a result of development or visitors management causes
• Different: All different delays associated to the NAS and air visitors management

For this report, I broke out every delay trigger by proportion. I mixed all emergency and non-emergency climate delays below one class for simplicity.

Word that the desk under solely contains delays, not canceled or diverted flight operations.

Curiously, in 2023 the most typical trigger for delayed flight departure was the plane arriving late. Basically, arrival delays delayed the following flight.

Admittedly, this isn’t a really satisfying reply, as a result of it doesn’t instantly point out a root trigger.

What this exhibits, although, is the domino impact of flight delays. One late arrival delays the following flight departure, which ends up in one other delayed arrival, and so forth. Each single delay has destructive impacts down the road.

It’s a honest assumption then, that each flight that was delayed by an plane arriving late may be attributed to one of many different causes farther again within the plane’s itinerary.

Airways prefer to cite climate circumstances or different points exterior their management because the causes of flight delays, however in actuality, the most typical root trigger is the airline itself. Accounting for 37.4% of flight delays in 2022 and 33.3% in 2023, air service points trigger extra delays than all different root causes mixed (excluding late arrivals as a root trigger).

Sadly, there isn’t concrete information specifying what precisely airways did to trigger these delays, solely that the airline is accountable. Particular causes might embody staffing shortages, plane upkeep, or delays in boarding passengers.

The important thing takeaway is that almost all of delays—these attributable to air service operations and by the domino impact of arrival delays—are preventable and are inside airways’ management.

Flight Delay Statistics by Airline

All US airways with greater than 0.5% of the market share are legally required to report on-time efficiency, delay occasions, and delay causes for each flight.

The chart under exhibits the chances of flights which might be on time, delayed, or canceled by every airline in 2022 and 2023.

Throughout all home flights, 24.1% had been delayed or canceled in 2023 (with delayed being outlined as departing quarter-hour or extra after the scheduled time). The general common departure time was 14.43 minutes after the scheduled time.

Most On-Time Airline: Republic Airline

Republic Airline has one of the best flight-on-time efficiency of all main US carriers in 2023. With solely 11.9% of flights departing late, Republic Airline performs about 10% higher than the nationwide common. That could be a notable enchancment from 2022, when Republic had 15.8% of flights delayed.

Republic Airline flights additionally depart 10 minutes sooner than common, solely 4.67 minutes after the scheduled time.

Curiously, though it has one of the best on-time departure fee, Republic has the worst flight cancellation fee, with 3.32% of flights canceled in 2023.

Most Delayed Airline: Frontier Airways

Frontier is the worst performer. A dismal 34.9% of Frontier home flights departed late in 2023. Meaning effectively over a 3rd of Frontier flights both depart greater than quarter-hour late or are canceled. Frontier’s common flight departure time is 29.43 minutes after the scheduled time.

Flight Delays in Massive vs Small Airways

It’s fascinating that the highest 5 airways for on-time proportion in 2023 are all fairly small, with lower than 3% of the market share. All however SkyWest have lower than 1.5% of the market share.

The worst performers (Frontier, JetBlue, and Spirit) are additionally on the smaller finish, although bigger than the airways within the prime on-time rankings.

The “Huge 4” US airways (Delta Air Traces, American Airways, United Airways, and Southwest Airways) are throughout the center of the pack. Maybe that’s solely logical although. As a result of giant air carriers function a large quantity of flights, as a result of rules of scale, their efficiency is sure to even out nearer to the nationwide common.

Alternatively, smaller airways usually tend to be outliers just because they don’t have the identical quantity and variety of flights.

Of the Huge 4, Delta Air Traces carried out greatest with 78.6% of home flights operated by Delta departing on time. Delta additionally has one of many lowest charges for flight cancellations, simply 1.41%.

The fifth-largest airline within the nation by income, Alaska Airways is the most important service to have an on-time fee higher than 80% in 2023.

Price range Airways and Delays

Maybe unsurprisingly, funds airways carry out worse relating to delayed flights. The underside 4 in 2023—Southwest Airways, Spirit Airways, JetBlue Airways, and Frontier Airways—are all lower-cost carriers.

There are a lot of explanations for why funds airways have extra delays. These embody staffing points, inadequate upkeep, and fewer environment friendly operations.

Alternatively, there may be proof that funds airways have an general optimistic influence on the punctuality of an airport.

A study by Ha V. Pham at the University of Virginia Department of Economics discovered that airports with the best proportion of low-cost airline flights have shorter delay occasions.

I’ll say that one other manner. If an airport has extra flights from funds airways, the common delay time for all flights from that airport is decrease.

This will likely appear counterintuitive, however Pham’s analysis means that the quick-turnaround method of funds carriers frees up airport sources for different airways to make use of.

Airline Delay Statistics by Airport

Variations in airline delays between completely different airports also can present key insights. Because it seems, there may be a fair bigger distinction in on-time efficiency between airports than between airways.

Airports with the Most Flight Delays

The desk under lists the 5 US airports with the worst on-time arrival charges in 2023. This evaluation doesn’t take diverted flights into consideration, however the proportion of flights diverted is sufficiently small to be non-significant.

The primary level to notice with the information above is that a lot of the airports with the worst on-time efficiency are smaller regional airports. As with airways, this is sensible contemplating the smaller scale of those airports. 

With so few flights, small regional airports usually tend to be outliers. In reality, we’ll see that essentially the most on-time airports are additionally smaller regional ones. A bigger airport, however, merely has extra quantity to common out.

The exception right here is the Fort Lauderdale Hollywood Worldwide Airport, which had 33.1% of its flights delayed and a pair of.6% canceled to this point in 2023. The truth that this main worldwide airport ranks with these smaller outliers is putting.

After we have a look at the worst delay percentages solely amongst main worldwide airports, we are able to see that Fort Lauderdale had a noticeably decrease on-time proportion. Different main airports with excessive delay charges embody Orlando, Denver, Baltimore, and Las Vegas.

Airports with the Fewest Flight Delays

When taking a look at airports with the fewest delays, small regional airports once more present up because the outliers, with delay charges as little as 2.8%. I’ve included tables under each for absolutely the highest on-time proportion in addition to main airports with the best on-time proportion.

Curiously, 4 out of 5 of essentially the most on-time airports within the nation are small regional airports in Idaho and Montana. Probably the most on-time main airports, however, are usually not concentrated in anybody area.

The Pocatello Regional Airport has one of the best on-time efficiency within the nation, with simply 2.8% of flights delayed in 2023. It additionally has a powerful cancellation file, with no flight cancellations in any respect in 2023 to this point.

Contemplating solely bigger airports, the outcomes are far much less dramatic. The Minneapolis-St. Paul Worldwide Airport had one of the best on-time efficiency of any main airport in 2023. 17.3% of flights had been delayed, and 1.8% had been canceled.

That’s solely a 5-point distinction from the nationwide common of twenty-two.4% of flights delayed. Minneapolis had extra canceled flights on common: the nationwide common is 1.7%.

These outcomes point out that smaller airports have far more means to dramatically enhance efficiency than worldwide airports with bigger flight volumes.

That is sensible contemplating that airways trigger way more delays than airport operations. Smaller airports sometimes have a small variety of completely different airways working flights. Bigger airports sometimes have many extra airways working, which implies poor airline efficiency will overpower efforts made by the airport towards punctuality to a big extent.

Airline Delay Statistics by State/Territory

Main variations in on-time efficiency can be seen between completely different states. The desk under exhibits the share of flights delayed in every US state or territory in 2022 and 2023.

Mississippi, Idaho, Alaska, Oregon, and Kansas all carried out persistently effectively in 2022 and 2023 for on-time flights. The highest states for on-time flights are largely states with much less air visitors quantity and decrease populations general.

Unsurprisingly, most of the states that rank worst for delays even have a significant airport that is likely one of the most delayed within the nation. For instance: The Baltimore, MD; Denver, CO; and Las Vegas, NV airports are all among the many most delayed main airports. Consequently, Maryland, Colorado, and Nevada rank as a few of the most delayed states.

Delaware solely has one comparatively small regional airport (the Wilmington Airport), however delays in Delaware are far worse than in some other state, with over 55% of flights being delayed in 2022.

Sources and Methodology

All information for this report come from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) Reporting Service On-Time Efficiency Database, which incorporates information from 1987 as much as the current. This database contains information organized by origin and vacation spot airport, date, and airline. The reported information contains scheduled and precise departure and arrival occasions, canceled and diverted flights, taxi-out and taxi-in occasions, causes of delay and cancellation, air time, and continuous distance.

I accessed this information utilizing the BTS online data tables on October 18, 2023.

Knowledge Classes and Variables

For this report I queried the BTS information tables based mostly on the next classes for filtering and sorting:

• Reporting_Airline: a novel service code indicating every airline
• OriginAirportID: an identification quantity assigned by US DOT to establish a novel airport—for the origin
• DestAirportID: an identification quantity assigned by US DOT to establish a novel airport—for the vacation spot
• OriginState: the title and state code of the origin state or US territory

Inside every filtering class, I accessed the next variables for evaluation.

• PctDepOntime: a proportion of exits leaving inside quarter-hour of the scheduled time
• DepDelay15: an indicator of delayed departure the place over quarter-hour late is taken into account delayed—1 for delayed and 0 for not delayed
• DepDelayMinutes: distinction in minutes between scheduled and precise departure time—early departures set to 0
• Flights: variety of flights inside a class
• Canceled: variety of canceled flights inside a class
• Cancellation Code: a quantity indicating the reason for delay

Evaluation

After I pulled the information from the BTS tables, I carried out all evaluation, group, and calculations to find out the ultimate outcomes.

The next values had been calculated based mostly on the out there information in every class:

• Share of flights that had been delayed
• Share of flights that had been canceled
• Mixed proportion of utmost climate delays and NAS climate delays
• Particular person general proportion of delays from particular person NAS causes

For delay causes, I mixed “excessive climate delays” and NAS-related climate delays below one class to offer an correct illustration of all weather-related delays.

I organized and sorted the calculated outcomes to seek out essentially the most and least delayed airways, airports, and states. For the reason that outlying outcomes for airports had been small regional airports, I additionally filtered to seek out essentially the most and least delayed main worldwide airports.

Closing Airline Delay Findings

It’s clear that delayed flights are an issue that isn’t going away quickly. Almost 1 / 4 of flights within the US depart at the least quarter-hour late, and there isn’t proof of that fee reducing.

Whereas it’s straightforward to say that flight delays are brought on primarily by climate or air visitors, the reality is that airways themselves bear the brunt of the duty for delays. Some airways do carry out higher than others, and funds airways are essentially the most typically delayed.

Peer reviewed by Dr. Marcus Green, Ph.D. on November twenty second, 2023.

Airline Delay Statistics FAQs