The World’s Most Punctual Airlines Revealed

Most of us have had the displeasure of a delayed flight. Whether you’ve been stuck on the tarmac or in the airport, taking off behind schedule can ruin plans, affect onward travel, and be, well, just plain annoying.

Luckily for us travellers, however, travel analyst OAG has just released its

Punctuality League for 2018

, revealing the airlines and airports with the best timekeeping. Using data from 57 million flight records throughout 2017, the UK-based analyst has formulated a ranking of the best on-time performance for the world’s largest airlines and airports. Its definition of on-time performance, or OTP, is “flights that arrive or depart under 15 minutes of their scheduled times.” The highest ranked airline – with 90.01% of flights on time — is Latvian flag carrier airBaltic. Hong Kong Airlines came in second with 88.83 while U.S. carrier Hawaiian Airlines was third with 87.24%.

Most punctual airlines

1. airBaltic (90.01%). (Top Mainline Airline and Top Airline in Europe).

2. Hong Kong Airlines (88.83%). (Top Airline in Asia-Pacific).

3. Hawaiian Airlines (87.24%). (Top Airline in North America).

4. Copa Airways (86.39%). (Top Airline in Latin America).

5. Qantas Airways (86.18%).

6. Japan Airlines (85.27%). (Top Mega Airline).

7. Vueling Airlines (85.35%). (Top Low-Cost Carrier).

8. Jetstar Asia (85.08%).

9. Skymark Airlines (85.00%).

10. Aer Lingus (84.46%).

Most punctual airports

In order to rank global airports, OAG looked at airports with an annual minimum of 2.5 million departing seats. The rankings have also been broken down according to the size of the airport into five categories: mega (30 million-plus departing seats last year), major (20 million-30 million seats), large (10 million-20 million seats), medium (5 million-10 million seats) and small (2.5 million-5 million seats). For the third year in a row, the most punctual mega airport is Japan’s Tokyo Haneda with a score of 86.75%. The highest ranked major airport is Minneapolis-Saint Paul in the U.S with 85.72%, while the top large airport is again in Japan – Osaka Airport with a score of 88.45%. The UK’s Birmingham Airport is the top medium airport, with an on-time performance of 89.52%. Spain’s Tenerife North is the top small airport, with 90.05%. It is also the only airport in the world to achieve OTP of over 90% in 2017.