The October on-time performance for North American carriers improved for a second consecutive month, with the average up 2.2 percentage points from September to 79.8 percent, according to the latest monthly report from aviation analytics company Cirium.
Seven of the 10 reporting airlines had improved month-over-month scores, with two declining and Allegiant being listed again after not qualifying in August or September. The two carriers with lower scores month over month were Southwest Airlines, declining 2.2 percentage points to 68.9 percent and landing in last place for the second consecutive month, and WestJet, down 1.7 percentage points to 83.6 percent, but still coming in third.
Delta Air Lines had the highest October average on-time performance score at 86.9 percent, up 4.4 percentage points compared with September. United Airlines was second at 84.1 percent, up 5.4 percentage points for the period.
JetBlue for the second consecutive month had the largest month-over-month gain, of 7.7 percentage points to 82.3 percent and jumping to fourth place from seventh a month prior.
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Delta, United and WestJet each made Cirium's global list of top on-time airlines, with Delta third, United seventh and WestJet eighth. Hainan Airlines led the global list with an on-time performance of 93.4 percent.
Delta also had the highest completion factor at 99.8 percent, followed by United at 99.7 percent and Frontier Airlines at 99.6 percent.
The number of North American flight cancellations in October was 6,365 compared with 9,735 in September.
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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