Every US airline on-time statistic you’ve ever read — DOT’s monthly reports, Cirium’s rankings, the “Platinum Award” language Delta has used for years — is built on the same industry-standard grace period: a flight counts as on-time if it departs…
Air travel is like all other consumer services, providers try to ‘sell’ everything around the product, which influences consumers into thinking they’re buying something special. Air travel consumption boils down to two fundamental items: cost and time, for leisure travelers…
The release of the US DOT’s July On-Time performance dataset allows us to update our operational models. This update reveals a fascinating evolution in our Airport Performance Index, highlighting major operational turnarounds and persistent bottlenecks across the US network. The…
Delta Air Lines’ on-time rate improved in the first half of 2026 — 78.7% to 79.3%, good for second among the major US carriers. By the metric most coverage and DOT reporting leads with, Delta looks fine, maybe even a…
With April data published in the US DOT On-Time dataset, we want to introduce new metrics to help understand the state of the US airline industry. These metrics are going behind the paywall — but we’re sharing them here first…
Airlines around the world pad their schedules, and US carriers are no exception. Scheduled flight times have a curious habit of lengthening over time, even as aircraft technology, navigation systems, and operational tools continue to improve. A rational observer might…