Leading air travel intelligence company OAG has announced its ‘Punctuality League 2015’, which ranks the world’s most on-time airlines and airports based on date from  50m data records.

 

The top three large airports last year were Tokyo Haneda (91.25%), Münich (87.71%) and Sao Paulo Guarulhos (87.47%), while Copenhagen (88.53%), Moscow Sheremetyevo (88.48%) and Helsinki (88.43%) ranked one to three in the medium category.

 

In addition, the top three small airports for punctuality were Osaka ITM (93.85%), Brussels South Charleroi (93.61%) and Panama City (92.55%).

 

Turning to the top airlines, Latvia’s airBaltic once again led the airline rankings, with an average on-time performance (OTP) rating of 94.39%, followed by Panama’s Copa Airlines (91.69%) and Brazil’s low-cost carrier (LCC) Azul (91.03%). within the LCC category, Latin America also leads the way with Azul and Gol Airlines (86.45%) in the top three and Norwegian (86.67%) in second place.

 

 

John Grant, senior analyst at OAG commented: “The OTP of airlines and airports play a valuable role in the industry and have the power to bring about positive change in the future of aviation.

 

“The benchmarking tool is a powerful ‘key performance indicator’ as well as a potential service differentiator for marketing the products to travellers.

 

“An airline’s schedule is a key element of what the traveller is buying – passengers need to be able to plan around realistic and reliable arrival times and connecting time requirements.”

 

 

This includes their pre-trip planning time for both shopping and eating. OAG describes itself as an air travel intelligence company providing accurate, timely and actionable information and applications to the world’s airlines, airports, government agencies and travel-related service operators.

 

It claims to operate the world’s largest network gathering air travel data, including ‘definitive schedules’ with its database consisting of more than 900 airlines and over 4,000 airports.

 

 

 

In its concluding comments on the report’s findings, OAG says the following:

 

Airports keep pushing to improve on-time performance. Performance across the airport categories has improved this year, reflecting the hard work on the ground at airports across the globe. We have new leaders in each category and the baseline for our medium and large airport categories has increased – no mean feat for these airports.

 

JAPAN DOMINATES THE AIRPORTS CATEGORY

Japanese airports have set the bar high in the small and large airport categories with Osaka (ITM) and Tokyo Haneda (HND) ensuring 93.9% and 91.3% of flights arrive and depart on time respectively. Tokyo Haneda (HND) has improved on last year’s performance and also tops our Megahub league. Japan’s airlines also do well, with both Japan Airlines (JL) and ANA (NH) in the Top 5 carriers for on-time performance globally and are the top two carriers in the Asia Pacific region.

 

CAPACITY CONSTRAINTS CONTINUE TO HOLD UK BACK

Despite being the world’s fifth largest airport by seats in 2015, London Heathrow’s (LHR) capacity issues continue to impede on-time performance, meaning it does not make it into our league. Neither do any of the other large UK airports. We can only hope that 2016 will bring progress on the outstanding decisions on new runways.

 

LCCS GLOBALLY ARE WORKING HARD TO IMPROVE PUNCTUALITY

Whilst still not achieving the same levels of on-time performance as mainline carriers, this year we see a significant improvement in the baseline of the LCC category, from 58% up to 74%. Due to enhanced coverage, we are also pleased to be able to include some of the world’s largest LCCs.

 

MAINLINE CARRIERS STILL LEAD THE WAY

With just two LCCs in the Top 20 airlines category, mainline carriers still dominate the rankings with higher average on-time performance. Half of the carriers in the Top 20 are European.

 

PANAMA AND COPA DEMONSTRATE POWER OF AN EFFECTIVE HUB

Effective hubs work best with carriers and airports pursuing similar goals and it’s evident with just over 9 out of 10 flights arriving and leaving on time at Panama City (PTY) that the airport and Copa Airlines work closely to ensure excellent operational performance, making the airport and airline the top performers in Latin America.

 

 

INFRASTRUCTURE LIMITATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT INFLUENCE NEWCOMERS

There are some notable absences again this year. There are, as yet, no Chinese airports or airlines in the league. Performance is improving however and we hope to be able to include some in next year’s league. Similarly, none of the major UK airports make it into the Top 20, reflecting the ongoing capacity and infrastructure debate.

 

There are also no Middle East airports in any of our airport categories this year, but for different reasons while these airports wrestle with matching capacity to the fast pace of demand in the region.

 

For a full copy of the report, visit: http://www.oag.com/Press-Room/oag-reveals-global-time-performance-results-2015