American Airlines posts worst on-time performance

American Airlines found itself at the bottom of the list in a survey that measured the punctuality of major carriers in the United States. The study, created by the Department of Transportation, examined the on-time performance of 19 airlines based in the US, and American Airlines came out at the very bottom of the pack. Since the survey only looked at the month of March, it determined that American cancelled more flights during this period than any of its domestic competitors. A dismal 62 percent of American flights were actually on time in March, with the rest of them more than 15 minutes behind schedule.

The Department of Transport numbers indicate that American Airlines has truly underperformed when it came to arriving and departing on time. While on average 71.6 percent of US flights were on time, American’s score is clearly far lower. Yet the average score hardly serves as positive news, since it appears as though most US carriers are now tardier than they were last year, when 73.3 percent of flights were on time. One of the reasons for this, however, may be the collapse of Aloha Airlines, which tended to have an on-time performance of around 90 percent, thus increasing the overall average.

The first place standing in this survey of US carrier went to Hawaiian Airlines, as an impressive 94.5 percent of its flights were on time.

www.aa.com