Post pandemic, airline punctuality is recovering across the board but 2022 saw some dips. Photo / David Cohen, Tomas Williams; Unsplash
Post pandemic, airline punctuality is recovering across the board but 2022 saw some dips. Photo / David Cohen, Tomas Williams; Unsplash
Travelling to Japan? Best be on time to the airport!
The most punctual airports and airlines have been published for 2023 with Japan outperforming the rest of the world. Meanwhile, New Zealand has seen a turbulent year for plane timetables with labour and material shortages seeing a dip in overall punctuality.
The annual OAG Punctuality League looks at flight data and on time performance from for carriers and airports, ranking punctuality by region and carrier type.
Japanese airlines took the top two places in large airlines, with All Nippon Airways tipping into top position ahead of Japan Airlines in second, with 88.79 per cent and 88.07 per cent on time performance respectively.
South American carrier LATAM landed in third, with a respectable 85 per cent punctuality rating.
Average cancellation rate for major carriers last year was 4.24 per cent, however this was skewed by a catastrophic year for China Eastern which saw two fifths (40.28 per cent) of services scrapped.
Excluding this airline sees the average cancellations fall closer to 2.3 per cent.
Japan also performed well in the “Mega Airports” category, with Tokyo Haneda landing in the top sport for the most punctual services, seeing 88.06 per cent of services arriving on time.
Mega Airports which accounted for the world’s top 20 airports by scheduled services saw US airports filling the rest of the top 10.
European transport hubs struggled last year with disastrous resourcing issues and summer disruption. This saw Amsterdam Schiphol, Paris CDG and London Heathrow taking the bottom three places, with average on time performance of under 65 per cent.
For travellers wishing to get places on time and under budget, the report also published a most punctual low cost carrier table.
German carrier Eurowings took top position for punctuality with an impressive 95.2 per cent OTP, however with 3.49 per cent of services failing to fly it also had an extremely high cancellation rate, compared to its low-cost peers.
“Global on-time performance is reaching levels last seen before the pandemic as carriers work to ease operational pressures and delays,” said John Grant, chief analyst at OAG.
“Confidence in the travel recovery is growing with airlines placing new aircraft orders, new routes being announced and labour challenges seemingly subsiding.”
Based on aviation industry standards ‘on-time’ is defined as any service departing or arriving within 15 minutes of the scheduled time.
Air New Zealand uses Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners on its New York route. Photo / Supplied.
New Zealand’s most punctual airlines
The OAG report did not include Australian or Kiwi carriers but, based on airlines self-reporting of on time performance, it was not a stellar year for punctuality.
Jetstar New Zealand reported a monthly average of 76.4 per cent in 2022. This was down on 2021 which saw an almost perfect OTP of 93.2 per cent, thanks to a reduced and recently relaunched service with the end of Covid 19 restrictions.
Air New Zealand’s on time rating was 75.51 per cent for long haul and 83.6 per cent for domestic routes.
These averages represent some big dips and disruptions to services over the past year.
The worst month for all airlines was July. Amid weather warnings and high staff sickness levels Jetstar New Zealand reported just half (50.4 per cent) of their flights were on time and Air New Zealand’s short haul and domestic jet services dropped to 54.4 and 60 per cent on time respectively.
Qantas’ domestic and short haul operations saw an on time performance of 77.5 per cent for the financial year 2021-2022, according to data from the Australian Department of Infrastructure and Transport (Bitre).
Virgin Australia, which was covered in the OAG report, came last in the low-cost carriers league with an on time performance rate of 64.54 per cent. It also had the highest cancellation rate of the surveyed budget airlines, at 4.22 per cent.
