The Department of Transportation’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection recently published the results of its Air Travel Consumer Report, designed to help travelers get information on the quality of services provided by airline carriers. According to the report, which analyzed flight data throughout 2021, these are the most punctual airlines to fly. RELATED: Never Forget to Do This After Boarding, Flight Attendant Warns. Avoided by some for its no-frills approach to flying, and beloved by others for its consistently low fares, Spirit Airlines comes in sixth on the list. The smaller carrier flew just 191,361 flights in 2020, with an average on-time percentage of 76.74. That’s far fewer than the 135,102 flights it flew in 2020, when it had a relatively much higher on-time percentage of 86.61. Spirit’s ranking beats out the relatively less timely Frontier Airlines (seventh place); Southwest Airlines (eighth place); Jetblue Airways (ninth place); and Allegiant Air (10th place). United Airlines and the branded codeshare partners in its network come in fifth on the list of the most on-time domestic carriers. In 2021, the United Airlines network flew 1,148,340 flights, with an average on-time percentage of just 79.81. That represents a major dip from United’s 83.75 percent on-time rate when it flew just 885,351 total flights in 2020 under pandemic circumstances. RELATED: This Is the Worst Airline in the U.S., New Data Shows. American Airlines comes in fourth on the list of most on-time domestic carriers. The airline and its codeshare partners flew the largest number of flights among any airline in the rankings: 1,674,371 flights in all in 2020, with an on-time percentage of 81.58. While this is substantially more flights than the 1,311,462 American flew the previous year, it represents a slowdown in performance: In 2020, 82.32 percent of American flights were on time. RELATED: Never Say These 4 Words to the Person Next to You on a Plane, Expert Warns. Alaska Airlines and its codeshare partners came in third on the list, with an on-time rating of 83.17 percent across 359,458 total flights. This number marks a performance decline over the airline’s 2020 on-time rate of 86.31 percent when it flew relatively fewer 282,967 flights earlier in the pandemic. RELATED: Never Forget to Do This Before Boarding, Flight Attendant Warns. Delta ranks second to most timely on the list. In 2021 the airline and its partners flew a mighty schedule of 1,357,322 flights. Of those, 88.22 percent were on time. Impressively, that figure is even slightly better than Delta’s 2020 performance when there were far fewer flights during the pandemic (1,066,908), and of those, 87.20 percent were on time.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb RELATED: For more up-to-date information including travel news and advice, sign up for our daily newsletter. RELATED: If You Hear These 7 Words on a Flight, an Engine Has Failed, Pilot Says.
