After dropping in June and July and holding steady in August, the September weighted average on-time performance for North American carriers rebounded to 77.6 percent with a 5.5 percentage-point month-over-month increase, according to the latest report from aviation analytics company Cirium.
All nine listed carriers in September had improved figures from August. WestJet for the fifth consecutive month had the highest average at 85.3 percent, up 2.7 percentage points from August. Delta Air Lines was second at 82.5 percent, up 3.3 percentage points, followed by Alaska Airlines at 80.7 percent, up 6.7 percentage points.
JetBlue had the biggest month-over-month improvement, of 10.7 percentage points to 74.6 percent.
[Report continues below chart.]
WestJet and Delta each made Cirium's global list of top on-time airlines, with WestJet in sixth and Delta in ninth. Hainan Airlines was first with an on-time performance of 92.7 percent.
Southwest Airlines in September had the highest completion factor at 99.6 percent, followed by Frontier Airlines at 99.4 percent and WestJet at 99.3 percent.
The number of North American flight cancellations in September was 9,735 compared with 18,295 in August.
A flight is considered on time if the aircraft arrives at the gate within 15 minutes of its scheduled arrival time.
RELATED: Cirium: August N. American On-Time Performance Steady