Topic of the Week: December On Time Performance

February 11, 2011 CF 22 comments

The DOT has released December on-time performance and as you would imagine, it was awful. Anything stand out for you in this month’s report?
http://airconsumer.dot.gov/reports/2011/February/2011FebruaryATCR.PDF

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Written by Tweets that mention Topic of the Week: December On Time Performance – >> The Cranky Flier — Topsy.com on February 11, 2011. Reply

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Written by Zack Rules on February 11, 2011. Reply

Jetblue’s performance stuck out. I had a December 30th flight that was delayed three hours because of a technical problem in Austin where the plane had started the day. Bad luck I suppose.
- Written by Nicholas Barnard on February 11, 2011. Reply
  
  Jetblue’s line on this is that if they can fly a flight they do instead of canceling it. Whereas other airlines will cancel flights to improve their ontime performance.
- Written by CF on February 11, 2011. Reply
  
  I’d say JetBlue’s performance is becoming so routine at the bottom of the pile that it’s beginning not to stick out anymore!
  
  Nick – That was JetBlue’s old policy back up until the Valentine’s Day meltdown in 2007. They pre-cancel like the rest of them now. In fact, JetBlue was at the top of the list in terms of cancellation percentages in December with more than 8 percent canceled.
Written by Bill from DC on February 11, 2011. Reply

only the usual comment – that this reporting is essentially useless because the vast majority of the majors’ poor performing flights are buried in the pinnacles, ASAs, skywests and x-jets of the world. just once, i would like to see an apples-to-apples comparison of these results with the majors having to show all their branded ops under their own banners. also, since this on-time reporting is ostensibly done by the government on behalf of the general public, it would be FAR more useful for the public to have results by branded ops since that is how the airlines go to market anyway.
- Written by Nicholas Barnard on February 11, 2011. Reply
  
  This goes to the greater problem that we have two types of codesharing wandering around under the same banner, the branded flying that the express carriers do, versus the fact that you can fly on Alaska branded flight on American Airlines metal..
- Written by CF on February 11, 2011. Reply
  
  Agreed. I think I’ve written about that problem in the past as well, but I just don’t think it’ll change. At least, I haven’t heard any rumblings.
- Written by XJT DX on February 14, 2011. Reply
  
  To support your argument, Majors routinely take regional slots and clearance times during weather and ATC delay events. In addition, they will be the ones to request cancellations so that airports will be able to handle mainline flights better. both of these causes lead to lower performance on express carriers.
  
  This is also the reason MESA had grounds to sue Delta over cancelling their CPA due to poor performance (Delta requested many of the cancellations at JFK).
Written by Todd in CMH on February 11, 2011. Reply

Bravo. Well said Bill.
Written by Daniel on February 11, 2011. Reply

I was looking at the denied boarding and wondering why American Eagle has almost double the Invol DB compared to the other carriers. They’re at 4.02 why the second highest is Mesa at 2.55.
- Written by CF on February 11, 2011. Reply
  
  I see Oct-Dec 2010 number with Eagle at 2.79, tied with Mesa. Still not good. Not sure why, but it seems to be an ongoing issue.
Written by Nicholas Barnard on February 11, 2011. Reply

I’m actually kinda surprised at the number of flights that don’t arrive ontime early in the morning. Some airports have 30% of flights not arriving ontime in the morning when weather and other operational delays should be having the least affect.
- Written by Nicholas Barnard on February 11, 2011. Reply
  
  Err, the least effect. I was clarifying affect vs. effect for a few folks yesterday, and I just mucked it up..
- Written by CF on February 11, 2011. Reply
  
  I think a lot of the weather in December hit overnight, so that would have hurt.
- Written by XJT DX on February 14, 2011. Reply
  
  Most of the airports with morning delayed arrivals may have also had severe delay departures to outstations the day before leading to crew legality issues for the morning…
  
  just my 2¢
Written by Adam on February 11, 2011. Reply

the major weather dealy is almost non ex in the cart ….the cx them befor they get delayed to much
Written by BW on February 11, 2011. Reply

Southwest’s on-time and baggage performance are not good at all, yet they rate very few customer complaints. Is that just a result of customer friendly policies and agents or are there other factors?
- Written by Nicholas Barnard on February 11, 2011. Reply
  
  Cranky wrote about this over at BNET: http://www.bnet.com/blog/airline-business/southwest-keeps-8216em-happy-but-its-late-flights-are-starting-to-stack-up/3220
  
  The bottom line is that Southwest has an image that lets them get away with this somewhat, but they can’t keep doing it or they’ll kill that image.
- Written by MeanMeosh on February 12, 2011. Reply
  
  Part of it also is because WN does a much better job at customer service when it comes to delays or other problems. I think part of the frustration with delays or lost baggage on legacy carriers is the lack of information, and the lack of anyone who seems to give a flip about the situation. I would think most flyers understand that occasional problems are inevitable, but also want the airlines to at least make an effort to keep them informed and make things more tolerable. Southwest has a better track record than the others, which probably leads to the lower number of complaints.
Written by Keagan on February 11, 2011. Reply

What surprises me is that Southwest only had 67% of all flights with on-time departures/arrivals. I’m going to assume this is because of fuller flights, and the 25 minute turn time isn’t as practical anymore?
- Written by MeanMeosh on February 12, 2011. Reply
  
  That may be part of the issue, but another thing is that WN has historically been more willing than the legacies to hold flights when connecting passengers are delayed. This may be good customer service, but it’s also going to cause delays to ripple through the system. And, even if the turnaround times are part of the problem, I’m not sure what can be done about that. More and more WN customers fly long-haul routes that use a single flight number, but might make several stops along the way (an especially inconvenient truth if you fly out of DAL, and want to get anywhere outside the current Wright Amendment perimeter). You might be able to superficially cut delays by lengthening turns to, say, 35 minutes, but those folks who are continuing on the next segment aren’t going to be happy at being stuck onboard longer.
Written by travelnate on February 11, 2011. Reply

hmmm.. Jetblue cancelled over 8% of their flights in December, followed by Comair at 7%… that’s a bit scary