Cirium: October N. American Air On-Time Performance Improves

The October on-time performance for North American carriers continued to improve, despite some weather issues due to Hurricane Milton, with a 2.4 percentage-point month-over-month gain to 84.5 percent, according to aviation analytics company Cirium. 

All but one of the reporting carriers posted an increase from their September averages. That exception was Frontier Airlines, which dropped 0.4 percentage points to 76.1 percent, the only carrier with an on-time average below 80 percent.

Taking the top spot again was Delta Air Lines with a 90.5 percent October on-time performance average. It was followed by United Airlines at 88.1 percent and American Airlines at 86.2 percent. The carrier with the biggest improvement was JetBlue, gaining 4 percentage points from September for an 86 percent average.

[Report continues below chart.]

Five North American carriers made the top 10 global rankings: Delta in second, United in fourth, American in seventh, JetBlue in eighth and WestJet in 10th.

United had the highest completion factor at 99.46 percent, but American was close behind at 99.45 percent as was Delta at 99.42 percent.

The number of North American flight cancellations, however, increased 35 percent month over month to 8,113.

A flight is considered on time if the aircraft arrives at the gate within 15 minutes of its scheduled arrival time.

 Cirium: September N. American Air On-Time Performance Soars