Average December North American airline on-time performance tumbled month over month for the third month in a row, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
The December weighted average for North American carriers dropped 10.5 percentage points compared with November to 67.8 percent. All 10 reporting carriers registered month-over-month declines.
United Airlines had the best December average at 75.2 percent. It also had the lowest drop (4.8 percentage points) of all the carriers from its November average. Alaska Airlines was second at 74 percent with an 8.1 percentage-point decline, followed by American Airlines in third at 73.8 percent, a 5 percentage-point decline.
WestJet reported the steepest drop from November—20.5 percentage points—and three other carriers also had declines in the double-digits: Air Canada (down 19.5 percentage points), Spirit (down 13.9 percentage points) and JetBlue (down 10.9 percentage points).
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None of the North American carriers made the December global on-time performance list, which was led by Aeromexico at 90.3 percent.
Southwest had a 99.6 percent completion rate, followed by United at 99 percent. American rounded out the top three with a completion rate of 98.7 percent.
The number of North American flights canceled in December was 14,322 compared with 18,145 in November.
A flight is considered on time if the aircraft arrives at the gate within 15 minutes of its scheduled arrival time.
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