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Flight Stats
Airline and Airport On-time Performance - January 2011 Report
February 4, 2011
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In this issue .....
North American Carriers - January 2011 Numbers
Performance Comparison at the World's 50 busiest airports
North American Airport Performance
European Airline Performance Report
Major Asian Airline Performance Report
About These Reports
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FlightStats 2010 OPS Awards Winners Announced


Congratulations to JAL, Alaska Airlines, SAS, J-Air, Hawaiian Airlines and Binter Canarias - all winners in the FlightStats 2010 On-time Performance Service (OPS) Awards. For details go to the OPS Awards Web Site.
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FlightStats is an airline, airport, and travel information service provided by Conducive Technology Corp. On our Web site at http://www.flightstats.com/, visitors can get flight status, track flights, view on-time performance ratings by flight or by airline, check for current airport delay and weather information, and much more.

FlightStats provides global flight status information and is the definitive source for historical airline performance data. Conducive Technology is also a leading supplier of air travel information services to travel agencies, logistics professionals, airlines, airports and industry analysts.

See the winners in the 2010 FlightStats On-time Performance Service Awards competition at the FlightStats OPS Awards Web site.
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A Rough Winter for North American Air Travel
Add another 33,000 cancellations to the more than 29,000 December cancellations by the top 40 airlines in North American - mostly weather related - and you have a record-setting pace. Early February cancellation numbers are piling up as well. On-time arrivals by these carriers was 71.47%, up slightly from December's 67.94%. Cancellations continue to significantly outpace those of the winter of 2009-10 in both percentage terms and real numbers. There were 33,372 canceled flights last month (4.07%) compared to 17,942 cancellations in January 2010 (2.26%).

Despite the weather, seven airlines managed to top the 80% on-time arrival performance mark including four of the majors - United, Alaska, US Airways and American. North America's top 10 performing airlines in January were:

  1. HA Hawaiian Airlines - 90.71%
  2. UA United Airlines - 85.37%
  3. AS Alaska Airlines - 85.3%
  4. YV Mesa Airlines - 85.04%
  5. US US Airways - 81.76%
  6. FL Airtran Airways - 81.43%
  7. AA American Airlines - 80.3%
  8. MQ American Eagle - 79.45%
  9. XE Expressjet Airlines - 79.3%
  10. QX Horizon Air - 78.9%

Here's how the N. American major carriers compared in January:

  • United Airlines (2nd overall) - 85.37%
  • Alaska Airlines (3rd overall) - 85.3%%
  • US Airways (5th overall) - 81.76%%
  • American Airlines (7th overall) - 80.3%
  • Delta (11th overall) - 78.74%
  • Continental Airlines (12th overall) - 77.93%
  • Jet Blue (32nd overall) - 68.71%
  • Southwest Airlines* (39th overall) - 62.05%
  • Air Canada (42nd overall) - 55.17%

* Source for Southwest Airlines arrival data is the US FAA. Southwest Airlines disputes the accuracy of this data.

Here are links to this month's detailed North American airline reports including a summary report for 2010:
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Top 50 World Airports -
January 2011 Departure Performance
The average on-time departure performance among the top 50 airports was 69.34% up a bit from December's 61.53%.


  1. HND Tokyo, JP - 94.38%
  2. STN London, GB - 89.64%
  3. KUL Kuala Lumpur, MY - 87.49%
  4. CGK Jakarta, ID - 87.23%
  5. IST Istanbul, TR - 86.02%
  6. NRT Tokyo, JP - 85.56%
  7. AMS Amsterdam, NL - 84.36%
  8. BCN Barcelona, SP - 83.09%
  9. ORY Paris, FR - 83.04%
  10. IAH Houston, TX - 82.11%

Download the reports for the ACI/IATA top 50 World Airports here:
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North American Airports - January 2011 Departure Performance Report
Memphis (MEM) had the highest percentage of on-time departures in this category for the second month in a row.

  1. MEM Memphis, TN - 84.1%
  2. IAH Houston, TX - 82.11%
  3. MEX Mexico City, MX - 81.88%
  4. SEA Seattle, WA - 81.5%
  5. CLT Charlotte, NC - 80.88%
  6. PDX Portland, OR - 80.88%
  7. PHX Phoenix, AZ - 80.81%
  8. DCA Washington, DC - 80.26%
  9. ATL Atlanta, GA - 80.07%
  10. SAN San Diego, CA - 79.7%

The January average on-time departure performance was 70.23%, up from December's 65.91%. The following five airports had the lowest on-time departure performance in the category in January:

36. JFK New York, NY - 62.46%
37. ORD Chicago, IL - 62.32%
38. MDW Chicago, IL - 60.23%
39. DFW Dallas, TX - 57.49%
40. MIA Miami, FL - 52.13%



Download the reports on North American airport departure performance here:
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European Airlines January Report
Smaller, regional carriers performed best again in January. KLM was the only major European carrier to make the list of top 10 performers:

  1. 4U Germanwings - 94.67%
  2. ZN NAYSA - 93.3%
  3. WA KLM Cityhopper - 92.74%
  4. T3 Eastern Airways - 90.71%
  5. FV Rossiya - 89.25%
  6. DB Brit Air - 88.93%
  7. VY Vueling Airlines - 88.82%
  8. KL KLM - 87.68%
  9. BE Flybe - 87.18%
  10. EW Eurowings - 86.85%

Download the report on European carrier arrival performance here:
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Asian Airlines Performance Report
Japan Air Lines and its subsidiaries J-Air and JAL Express took three of the top five performance slots in January. The average on-time arrival percentage among the Asian airlines we covered was 73.91%. The top 10 Asian airlines were:

  1. NU Japan Transocean - 90.38%
  2. JC JAL Express - 89.3%
  3. XM1 J-Air - 89.14%
  4. NH ANA - 87.81%
  5. JL JAL - 87.12%
  6. EH Air Nippon Network - 84.76%
  7. PG Bangkok Airways - 84.53%
  8. SQ Singapore Airlines - 83.86%
  9. KE KAL - 79.27%
  10. SG SpiceJet - 78.93%

Note: Our coverage of Asian carriers is limited due to a lack of available data sources. We listed only those carriers for which we have statistically significant gate departure and arrival information. If you don't see your airline listed here or would like to see a more complete representation of your data, please contact meara@flightstats.com to arrange for a data exchange.

Download the report on Asian carrier arrival performance here:
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About These Reports
These on-time performance reports for worldwide carriers and airports are generated from FlightStats Analytics. We track the performance of over 150,000 flights per day, archive the data for analysis and publication, and provide real time flight status to millions of travelers world wide each day.

In contrast to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) on on-time performance which are filed with the BTS by the largest US airlines, we gather it ourselves in real time and archive the data for analysis and reporting. This enables us to cover a larger list of airlines and airports and to issue reports within a few days of the end of the reporting month.

  • BTS reports only on US airlines and airports. FlightStats gathers data world-wide
  • BTS airline performance reports are based upon data reported by 19 US airlines, 18 of which constitute 1% or more of total domestic scheduled-service passenger revenues. FlightStats reports cover 45 US airlines and are based upon data gather in real time from a variety of sources including the US FAA, airlines reservation systems, direct feeds from airlines and airports.
  • BTS US airport performance reports are based upon information provided by the 32 U.S. airports that account for at least 1 percent of the nation's total domestic scheduled-service passenger enplanements. FlightStats equivalent reports are based upon archived real-time data covering the top 40 (i.e. busiest) North American airports.
  • Both BTS and FlightStats reports include information on the percentage of flights that arrived on time, were cancelled, were diverted. FlightStats breaks down the delays into 3 categories - late (15-29 minutes late at the gate), very late (30-44 minutes), and excessive (> 44 minutes). BTS simply reports that a flight is late (15 minutes or more).
  • FlightStats has more current data based upon real-time reporting. BTS data is published approximately 5 weeks after the close of a month as it relies on the airlines to file historical reports.
  • BTS also reports on baggage issues, passenger numbers, customer complaints and the causes of flight delays. FlightStats does not.

The articles in this issue include links to reports you can download with detailed performance data on the world's 50 busiest airports, US major airline performance, North American airport performance and European carrier performance.

We also track departure performance and can provide many different views into the data. Let us know if you need something in particular.

You may republish any and all data included in this report. We ask only that you attribute the data to FlightStats.com and include a link to http://www.flightstats.com if you publish the data in any form online.

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