What’s more irritating in air travel than waiting in super long airport queues? How about delayed departures and late arrivals?
Hearing the sentences ‘this service is delayed by…’ or ‘we’ll be arriving roughly 30 minutes behind schedule’ will trigger plane-wide grunts and eye rolls and boil the blood of even the calmest of travellers.
Yes, late-running services are annoying, but luckily there are a fair few carriers out there that manage to keep that tardy behaviour to a minimum and almost (but not quite) guaranteed on-time departures and arrivals in 2016.
According to OAG Aviation Worldwide, Hawaiian Airlines was the best airline in the world for on-time performance last year, with 89.87 percent of flights arriving and departing to schedule. This was a significant increase on the prior year, when the airline was actually ranked ninth place.
Another trusty airline for punctuality is Copa Airlines, which landed second with an 88.75 percent on-time performance, following by KLM.
Here in Australia, we’re pretty lucky to have Qantas, which was the fourth most punctual airline worldwide and the number one on-time in Asia Pacific.
Japan Airlines also remained consistent with its arrivals and departure times, as the second most prompt carrier in Asia Pacific, followed by Singapore Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Virgin Australia.
Among the world’s budget carriers, the UK’s Monarch Airlines was the most punctual with an 85.67 percent on-time performance rate, followed by GOL, Transavia and Jet2.com.
Australia’s Jetstar was the 19th most punctual among the low-cost carriers with a 73.66 percent on-time performance rate.
According to OAG Aviation Worldwide’s John Grant, in 2016 aviation achieved the highest level of success, which deserves recognition.
He continued, explaining that in 2017, more people will travel than ever before and on-time performance will be “crucial to that success”.
These are the 10 carriers worldwide that will likely get you to your destination on-time, because they did in 2016:
10. Singapore Airlines
9. Monarch Airlines
8. Iberia
7. Alaska Airlines
6. Flybe
5. Japan Airlines
4. Qantas
3. KLM
2. Copa
1. Hawaiian
