Insight: US airlines on-time performance getting worse (again)

The pandemic was awful in almost every respect, but one small positive from that period was the vast on-time improvement among US airlines.  As we have pointed out before

, time is a crucial metric for airlines.  Late arrivals mean added ops costs for airlines – the cost clock literally ticks by the minute and they can never recover lost schedule. As the pandemic’s impact waned, air travel volume has returned (some would say with a vengeance), and on-time performance has suffered.  US airlines‘ on-time performance getting worse (again).

To drive this home we want to share a six-page data model with you. Please click on the double-headed arrow at the bottom right to optimize your viewing.

• Summary Page – Here we show three charts that summarize the industry from January 2019 through February 2022. You can select an airline from the list on the left to see each one’s performance. Notice in the first chart that the number of flights dropped rapidly with the onset of the pandemic in early 2020.  There was a slow and steady recovery with fits and starts as the various Covid waves hit. Notice the industry’s unbridled confidence in rebuilding its schedule – way faster than traffic growth. The second chart shows the average stage length which has grown steadily shorter. The third chart shows shorter flights in terms of minutes, as you would expect.  There are implications from these trends and they are for rising costs. Recently we have seen a sharp increase in fares, and it is unclear if these will be sufficient to cover the rising costs.
• Page 1 – Here you can select an airline, aircraft type year, and OEM. The chart displays the number of flights and the table the average arrival delay time by aircraft type and both show the arrival time blocks.  Notice the industry uses the post-midnight period to reset ops. The table shows colors for arrival delays and these colors are relative to each other, the red being the biggest delays and green being the smallest. What you notice is that airlines can never catch up on lost time as the day goes on.  Once you lose a minute you can never win it back. There are huge implications – every minute costs around $100.  Revenue cannot make this up.  Only tighter ops can save time.  sloppy ops cost serious money on a cash basis.
• Hubs – Here we offer the data from the perspective of the top 30 US airport hubs. Origin markets on the left and destinations along the top. The same color rules apply. Even if there is a lot of green, consider that ANY number above zero is a real cost to the airline. A key item to keep in mind is that $100/minute.  A 10-minute arrival delay costs about $1,000 – where is that coming from?  The average fare is around $300, the “lost” $1,000 is like losing 3 paying customers.  This is a low-margin business with massive volumes.  That means every minute counts because sloppy ops add up very quickly.  Another key item to keep in mind: the costs keep rising from sloppy ops but the revenue is set. 
• Fleet – Here we offer the data from the fleet perspective.  Are certain aircraft types more vulnerable to delays?  Airlines use different aircraft for different missions. But there is a lot of cross-use – substitutions are common.  Ops costs mean there is constant pressure to drive down costs.  Airlines eek the lowest costs of production and fleet costs are a crucial component of this.
• Page 2 – As a follow on the fleet issue, we offer a look at the data by aircraft type and some data points such as the number of flights, average air time, average distance per flight, and average arrival delay in minutes.  The data lists the top 30 most active tail numbers for each airline and OEM.  Tail numbers are listed in descending order of flights, i.e. the busiest airplane is at the top.  The amount of arrival delay varies widely and we use color to highlight “problem” aircraft. viewers can switch years to see if the same tail numbers stay near the top.  It behooves any analyst to ask questions about any “hanger queen”.
• Page 3 – On this page, we want to show readers how the US airport hubs are performing over time in terms of taxi times. The upper chart shows the number of total minutes spent taxiing as well as taxi in and taxi out.  The lower chart provides an important context – how does total taxi time compare to air time?  Overall, the ratio is 20.6% which we find rather shocking.  About one-fifth of the travel time is spent on the ground!

We hope you find this insight useful and, perhaps, enlightening.  We believe this kind of insight on airline ops provides a view that is not commonly reported and understood.  As always, we appreciate your feedback.