Domestic Flights Are Late Less Often, Travelers Complaining More Anyway

See all these people who aren't beating each other up or demanding an emergency landing? Let's all be like these people. (photo: Martin Rottler)

See all these people who aren’t beating each other up or demanding an emergency landing? Let’s all be like these people. (photo: Martin Rottler)

Airline performance statistics are out for November 2015, and there’s some promising news: domestic flights arrived at their destinations on time 83.7% of the time. That’s down slightly from October, when the on-time rate reached 87%, but up from a year earlier, when 80.6% of domestic flights reached their destinations on time.

In the on-time rankings, Hawaiian Airlines is the top finisher, with 93.9% of its flights arriving on time. It also flies out of the fewest airports of the major U.S. carriers. Delta Air Lines took the silver medal, and Alaska Airlines came in at #3.

Most people who have complaints about an airline complain directly to that airline, and don’t take their problems to the Department of Transportation. While we don’t know how many people complained to their airlines, we do know that the total fewer than 1,000 people filed complaints with the federal government, which is higher than the same month last year.

Unsurprisingly, Spirit Airlines had the most. Spirit also happened to have the second-lowest on-time rate, 75.3%, coming in ahead of Frontier Airlines with 74% of their flights on time.

Another statistic that’s part of this report is the number of pets that were lost, injured, or killed during a domestic flight. No animals were lost during November 2015, but according to the reports two animals had injuries, and four died.

Air Travel Consumer Report – January 2016

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