Hawaiian Airlines was the most punctual carrier in the US last year closely followed by Delta, new figures have revealed.
The US Department of Transport has released its official Air Travel Consumer Report, which details the on-time performance for America’s 10 biggest carriers in 2018.
It also shows that the airline with the worst punctuality was Frontier, which was on-time just 69.4 per cent of the time.
Hawaiian Airlines was the most punctual carrier in the US last year. It had an on-time performance of 87.8 per cent
Top ranked Hawaiian Airlines saw 87.8 per cent of its services arrive at their destinations on time while Delta’s on-time arrivals hit rate was an impressive 83.2 per cent.
In third place was Alaska Airlines on 82.7 per cent, followed by Spirit Airlines in fourth on 81.1 per cent.
Low cost Southwest Airlines scraped into the top five with an on-time arrival performance of 79.2 per cent.
In sixth place was United Airlines on 77.9 per cent, followed by American Airlines on 77.4 per cent.
Allegiant Air was eighth on 76.9 per cent while Jetblue Airways was ninth on 71 per cent.
Overall, airlines posted an on-time arrival rate of 79.4 per cent, down from 80.2 per cent in 2017.
Delta Air Lines was ranked second for on-time performance, with a punctuality record of 83.2 per cent
The report also details cancellations.
It reports that carriers cancelled 1.6 per cent of their scheduled domestic flights in 2018, a higher rate than the 1.5 per cent that did so in 2017.
Tarmac delays were also up in 2018, with airlines reporting 202 delays of more than three hours on domestic flights, up from 193 the previous year.
There were also 61 tarmac delays more than four hours long on international flights last year. There were 51 reported in 2017.
The airline with the worst punctuality was Frontier. Its planes were on-time just 69.4 per cent of the time
Meanwhile, the annual report also looked at claims of mishandled baggage and found that from January to November, there was a mishandled baggage rate of 2.78 per 1,000 passengers, a higher rate than 2.41 per 1,000 passengers during the same time period in 2017.
The carrier with the most complaints about mishandled baggage was Envoy Air followed by Expressjet Airlines and Skywest Airlines.
Least complained about were Spirit Airlines, Jetblue Airways, Delta and United.
Being bumped off a flight because it’s been overbooked is never popular and fortunately it’s happening less and less.
Only 0.14 per 10,000 travellers were denied boarding in 2018 – the lowest annual rate since 1995.
The airline that denied boarding to the most passengers was Frontier followed by Envoy Air.
Bumping the least passengers were Delta, Endeavour Air and United Airlines.
The report also reveals that 10 animals died during transportation in 2018, and that there were seven reported injuries, although no animals were lost.
Out of the animal deaths, four of them occurred on a Delta aircraft, three happened on Hawaiian Airlines, two on United Airlines and one on board American Airlines.
The report also looked at complaints made against airlines and found there were a total of 15,541 lodged in 2018, down 14.4 percent from the total of 18,156 received in 2017.
Out of those complaints, 828 were made by disabled passengers about their treatment while travelling.
And a further 96 complaints were made by passengers claiming they had been discriminated against.
They are broken down as 64 complaints regarding race, two complaints regarding ancestry/ethnicity, 12 complaints regarding national origin, six complaints regarding colour, two complaints regarding religion, nine complaints regarding sex, and one complaint categorised as other.