More than 4,500 February flights operated by Canada’s 2nd-largest airline were late: Report
Published March 20, 2024 at 3:01 pm
More than three in 10 WestJet flights last month arrived late at their destination, placing Canada’s second-largest airline strongly in the basement among North America’s 10 major airlines in terms of on-time performance.
Calgary-based WestJet, which operates many of its flights out of Pearson Airport in Mississauga, landed 68.84 per cent of its 14,592 February flights on time (see chart below), according to aviation data firm Cirium’s latest monthly On-time Performance Report (North American airlines).
That means just over 31 per cent of the carrier’s flights (about 4,520) were late arrivals, meaning 15 minutes or more past scheduled arrival time.
The next-worst performer, Long Island, N.Y.-based JetBlue, was late about 24 per cent of the time in February, landing 75.24 per cent of its 25,510 flights on time.
Air Canada, the country’s flagship carrier, placed eighth on the February list, operating 75.28 per cent of its 29,179 flights on time (about 24 per cent late) to narrowly rank ahead of JetBlue.
More often than not, Air Canada has placed dead last on the OTP list that rates major North American carriers. Some 30 per cent of its 31,307 December 2023 flights were late in arriving at their destination, putting Canada’s largest airline in 10th place, a previous report shows.
Videos
Numbers measuring on-time performance for all of 2023 also placed Air Canada at the bottom of the rankings for the entire 12-month period, Cirium data revealed.
WestJet, meanwhile, placed seventh on the list in December with an on-time arrival mark of 73.86 per cent (15,035 flights). It was last in the October rankings.
Rankings for January 2024 were not immediately available.
Airlines’ on-time performance for December 2023 and February 2024 appear above (Source: Cirium Aviation Analytics)
By comparison, a trio of familiar airlines all based in the U.S. took the top three spots in February for best on-time performance.
At the top of the list for a sixth-straight month was Delta Air Lines, which landed 89.27 per cent of its 123,748 passenger flights on time.
Once again, United Airlines (84.91 per cent of 118,062 flights) and American Airlines (84.43 per cent of 163,119 flights) placed second and third, respectively, in February, the figures show.
Delta and United consistently ranked in the top three each month in 2023 while Alaska Airlines is also nearly always in the top four.
Each month, Cirium ranks the 10 largest airlines in a given region around the world based on their on-time performance rate.
Its numbers from February show that of the 650,322 flights across North America (10 airlines combined), 80.04 per cent arrived on time, up slightly from December figures.
(Cover photo: Pearson Airport)
insauga's Editorial Standards and Policies advertising