The same flight number from Cleveland back to Chicago was late 68 percent of the time, according to DOT figures. Louis was late a whopping 82 percent of the time by an average of 54 minutes. In September, Southwest Flight 3679 from Midway to St. In October, it operated 37 of 41 flights the DOT flagged as being late 70 percent of the time or more. Nationally, Southwest dominates the industry in chronically late flights. It bestowed on itself the "Triple Crown" award for excelling on those measures that are important to consumers.įast-forward 20 years, and the picture is quite different. Southwest's performance woes are a far cry from the mid-1990s, when for five years running it was tops in on-time performance, baggage handling and low complaint rates.
"It's been worse in the last month from our perspective, though to be fair, we're a pretty small snapshot of the entire picture," he said.
"But we do expect to see improvement by early next year."īrett Snyder, a blogger at and operator of a small travel concierge service, said he has noticed a problem lately with Southwest flights being delayed. "Adjustments take several months to implement, due to the complexity of our schedule," Parrish said. In an attempt to improve its on-time rates, Southwest last week changed its schedule, extending for some routes the total time it allots for such tasks as flying, taxiing, loading and unloading passengers, and preparing the aircraft for the next flight.īut delays on Southwest could continue in the near term. "We are aware of the pain points in our network, and we continue to work on schedule adjustments that will improve our future performance," he said. Meanwhile, airline competitors have slowly improved their on-time rates, raising the bar on performance.īut the reason for the recent terrible on-time rates - namely August, September and October - has been "a combination of unexpected summer weather and changes made to our schedule," said Southwest spokesman Brian Parrish. Millions of travelers rated the 'world's best' airlines."It's possible that air traffic congestion on key routes into and out of Midway may contribute to the local delays there," Harteveldt said.īecause Southwest is not strictly a hub-and-spoke airline, and doesn't fly as many back-and-forth flights as major network carriers do, its spare aircraft are less often in places where they're needed, which can lead to delays, Kaplan said. These are the world's best economy and low-cost airlines, according to 13 million travelers Sign up now: Get smarter about your money and career with our weekly newsletter Update: This story has been updated to reflect Spirit and Frontier's announcement of a planned merger. Combined, they would become the country's fifth-largest airline. Next year's rankings might be a little more condensed: On Monday, Spirit and Frontier announced plans to merge in a deal worth $6.6 billion. Delta placed third and fourth in those two categories, respectively.
Delta passengers were also the least likely to be involuntary bumped from a flight in 2021, according to the rankings.Īlaska Airlines recorded the fewest tarmac delays of more than two hours, and Allegiant Air was the least likely to mishandle passenger's baggage. In the most recent edition, Delta claimed the top ranking in five of the seven categories, boasting the most on-time arrivals, the fewest cancellations and extreme delays, and the fewest complaints. Meanwhile, Delta reclaimed the top spot in the rankings after dropping to second place a year prior, when Southwest topped the list. The pandemic was also responsible for many delayed flights throughout 2021, due to both crew availability and altered travel plans from passengers. Of course, JetBlue wasn't alone in that respect: The surge of Covid's omicron variant forced widespread cancellations for most airlines.
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