Mexican airline Aeromexico had the world’s best record for on-time arrivals in 2024, according to an annual ranking by aviation-data provider Cirium.
Chicago-based United Airlines made the top 10 global list at No. 10 with nearly 81% of its flights arriving on-time, about one point higher than 2023.
Delta Air Lines scored the highest among U.S. carriers to rank third worldwide. It achieved an on-time rate of more than 83%, despite a computer outage that caused thousands of flight cancellations in July after a faulty upgrade that cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike sent to Microsoft computers around the world.
Cirium said in its report, released Thursday, that nearly 87% of Aeromexico flights arrived within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival, a widely used measure of on-time performance among airlines.
Saudia, the flagship carrier of Saudi Arabia, ranked second worldwide, with an on-time performance rate of just over 86%.
Cirium has rated airlines for timeliness for 16 years. CEO Jeremy Bowen said 2024 was a difficult year for airlines due to severe weather patterns and the summer technology outage. The winning airlines therefore deserved credit for getting most passengers to their destinations on time, Bowen said.
Canada’s WestJet, Air Canada and Denver-based budget airline Frontier finished at the bottom of the pack among U.S. and Canadian carriers, with on-time ratings below 72%.
Other regional winners around the globe, according to Cirium, were Japan Airlines, low-cost Spanish carrier Iberia Express, Panama’s Copa Airlines, and South African low-cost carrier FlySafair.
Cirium said the best airport for on-time departures in 2024 was King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Nearly 87% of flights from there took off within 15 minutes of their scheduled time.
Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima, Peru, and Mexico City’s Benito Juárez International Airport had the next-best departure records at over 84%.
Among U.S. airports on the top 20 global airport list, Salt Lake City International Airport in Utah ranked the highest at No. 4 at 83.8%. The next-best U.S. airports were Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, at 82.3%, and Washington Dulles, at 82.2%, Cirium said. O’Hare and Midway airports didn’t make the list.
Contributing: Sun-Times