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Hawaiian Airlines most on-time US carrier, although delays rise overall

Long reach: the Airbus A330 used for the world's longest domestic flight: Hawaiian Airlines
Long reach: the Airbus A330 used for the world's longest domestic flight: Hawaiian Airlines

The most on-time US airlines of 2019 have been revealed, although passengers suffered more delays last year than the year prior.

Hawaiian Airlines came top, with 87.7 per cent of the carrier’s flights on time last year, according to official data from the US Department of Transportation (DoT).

Hawaiian was followed by Delta, Alaska and Southwest, with 83.5 per cent, 81.3 per cent and 80.2 per cent of their flights being on time respectively.

At the other end of the spectrum, Frontier Airlines came bottom, with just 73.1 per cent of its flights arriving on time last year.

Budget carrier jetBlue ranked one place up from Frontier, with a score of 73.5 per cent.

Overall, US carriers were on time just 79 per cent of the time last year, down from 79.2 per cent in 2018.

Hawaiian also cancelled the least number of flights last year, with just 0.4 per cent of its scheduled flights scrapped. United cancelled the highest number of flights, with 2.4 per cent of its schedule canned.

Elsewhere, US airlines reported 302 tarmac delays of more than three hours on domestic flights, up from 202 in 2018; and 26 tarmac delays of more than four hours for international flights, down from 61 incidents in 2018.

Meanwhile, the number of disability complaints made to the DoT jumped 9.4 per cent last year to 905; and the number of discrimination complaints spiked 9.3 per cent to 106.

On-time performance for US airlines

  1. Hawaiian Airlines – 87.7%

  2. Delta – 83.5%

  3. Alaska – 81.3%

  4. Southwest – 80.2%

  5. Spirit – 79.5%

  6. Allegiant – 78.7%

  7. American – 77.4%

  8. United – 75.2%

  9. JetBlue – 73.5%

  10. Frontier – 73.1%