Delta is once again the winner of Cirium’s annual on-time performance analysis of North American airlines.
In 2024, Delta flights were on time 83.5% of the time, tops among large North American carriers and third best among global carriers, which Cirium defines as those that fly to at least three international regions on a daily basis.
For the fourth consecutive year, Delta won Cirium’s Platinum Award, determined by evaluating timeliness alongside the overall breadth of an airline’s operations.
“The complexity, the vastness of the operation, and the numbers that this airline posts are just incredible,” Cirium chief marketing officer Mike Malik said.
He praised Delta for being able to win the Platinum Award despite its operational meltdown in July following the CrowdStrike outage. Those five days, during which Delta canceled approximately 7,000 flights and delayed more than 10,000 more, did, however, play a role in the carrier’s 2024 on-time performance declining slightly more than one percentage point from the 2023 figure of 84.7%. Cirium uses the DOT definition for on time — flights arriving within 15 minutes of schedule.
United was second among large North American carriers, improving to 80.9% from 80% in 2023. Alaska rounded out the top three at 79.3%, down from 82.3% in 2023.
Perennial on-time stalwart Hawaiian didn’t operate enough flights to make the Cirium ranking. But FlightAware data shows that the Honolulu-based carrier, now owned by the Alaska Air Group, had been on time 85.1% of the time for 2024 through Dec. 15, besting Delta.
Cirium’s figures account for 2024 flights through Dec. 17.
In regions outside North America, Iberia Express was once again the timeliest European carrier at 84.7%. Japan Airlines led the Asia-Pacific region with an on-time performance of 80.9%. South African discounter Safair led the Middle East-Africa region with 93.8%. Copa Airlines, a perennial on-time stalwart, topped Latin America with an on-time rate of 88.2%.
Another Latin American carrier, Aeromexico, led the way among all carriers that fly to at least three world regions with an on-time performance of 86.7% in 2024, up dramatically from 77.5% in 2023.
Saudia was second in the global category at 86.2%.
The on-time percentage for airlines worldwide was down approximately one percentage point in 2024, Malik said, primarily due to increases in global traffic.
UPDATED: This report was updated on Jan. 2 to include data through Dec. 31.
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