Want to squeal like a pig? Fly American late in the day.
Hate it when you get delayed at the airport? Book an early flight with Hawaiian Airlines
The latest Air Travel Consumer Report offers some evidence for how to avoid delays
By Millie Giles, Sherwood News
Oct 16, 2024
If you’re someone who struggles waking up for an early morning flight, there’s now some extra motivation to get you out of bed and on your way to the airport at the crack of dawn.
The latest Air Travel Consumer Report from the US Department of Transportation found that earlier flights departed on-time more frequently than those later in the day across carriers at America’s airports this July. In fact, each consecutive hour between 6AM and 8PM averaged a ~3 percentage point increase in the proportion of delayed flights from the hour before.
The report also detailed that the period between 6AM and 7AM was the least likely to see flights get delayed, with 86% of flight operations departing on-time… compared with the most delayed interval, 8PM-9PM, where less than half of all flights left within 15 minutes of the scheduled departure time.
Waiting on the wings
While it makes sense that the end of the day would see the most delays, since these flights are most affected by the accumulation of late arrivals in previous hours, departures eventually became more punctual if you start into getting really late flights: the proportion of delayed flights dropped off to ~28% on average from 11PM to 6AM (though data for this period is limited).
More broadly, travel numbers are still way above pre-pandemic levels, so a bump in delays might be more pronounced during high-footfall peak hours. As we were charting back in May, 2024 has been a record-breaking year for the industry, with the World Travel & Tourism Council predicting that nearly $1 out of every $10 spent globally this year will be on travel and tourism.
Time flies
Of course, whether you get off the ground on time is dependent on so many scheduling factors outside of your control. One aspect you do have influence over, however, is the airline you fly with, and some appear to just be better — at least statistically — at managing their timetables.
The same report found that, among US airlines across all airports nationwide this July, Hawaiian Airlines was the most prompt, with 84% of arrivals getting in on time, while American Airlines only saw 60% of its flights arriving without delays.
That said, American Airlines operated out of over 5x more reported airports than Hawaiian (22 airports reported), and this is only the report for July — so one bad week can hamper an airlines’ stats significantly.
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