Delta Regional Posts Dismal Performance, Including One Flight
Stranded Over 7.5 Hours
The nation's largest airlines had a
higher rate of on-time flights this past January than in either
January of last year or in December 2008, according to the Air
Travel Consumer Report released Wednesday by the US Department of
Transportation.
According to information filed with the Bureau of Transportation
Statistics, the 19 carriers reporting on-time performance recorded
an overall on-time arrival rate of 77.0 percent in January, an
improvement over both January 2008's 72.4 percent and December
2008's 65.3 percent. The carriers canceled 2.3 percent of their
scheduled domestic flights, also a lower rate than both the 2.9
percent cancellation rate of January 2008 and the 3.3 percent rate
posted in December 2008.
Hawaiian Airlines posted the highest on-time arrival rate, with
90.8 percent of its flights arriving at the gate within 15 minutes
of scheduled time. Southwest Airlines came in second, at 83.3
percent; somewhat surprisingly, Continental regional carrier
ExpressJet came in third, at 79.8 percent... a notable improvement
from December 2008 figures.
Lowest on-time figures continued to be dominated by regional
airlines, with Delta subsidiaries Comair and Atlantic Southeast
Airlines posting dismal rates of 56.7 and 68.3 percent on-time
arrivals, respectively. Alaska Airlines rounded out the bottom
three at 71.5 percent.
BTS says carriers reported .0002 percent of their scheduled
flights had ramp delays of three hours or more in January, down
from .0003 percent in December. There were 16 flights with ramp
delays of four hours or more in January, including at least five
stranded
on the ramp five hours or more.
The worst offender, Comair Flight 6331 from Cincinnati to
Pittsburgh, was stuck on the ramp a staggering 458 minutes -- over
7 1/2 hours -- on January 28. Comair also claimed the booby prize
for most delayed flights -- dominating the bottom five with flights
arriving later than scheduled times over 90 percent of the time --
and for the highest rate of cancelled flights.
BTS is still working to sort out its data from October,
November, December and January for cancelled and diverted flights,
and for flights with multiple gate departures,
after being called on the carpet for erroneous reporting
last year. Those updated stats are slated to be
released on March 23.