Hicran
September 9, 2009

The cutbacks in flights and selected routes from several major U.S. airlines this year paid off: U.S. airlines’ on-time arrival rate of domestic flights scored its highest rating since July 2003.

The 19 largest carriers reported an overall on-time arrival rate of 77.6 percent in July, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The on-time improvement rating is a nod to airlines, who suffered major financial drawbacks this year due to aggressively cutting flights. Airlines scheduled 580,134 U.S. flights during the month, which was 8 percent fewer than 627,931 in July 2008, according to the report.

Which airline received top honors for most on-time? According to the BTS, Hawaiian Airlines had the top July on-time rate with 93.6 percent of its flights arriving as scheduled. Alaska Air ranked second with 87.2 percent of on-time flights recorded. Low-cost carrier AirTran Airways ranked at the bottom of the list, with only 69.7 percent of on-time flights. Delta Air Lines’ affiliate Comair had the lowest on-time rate at 63.6 percent.

The BTS also ranks airlines’ overall customer satisfaction with airline service, baggage, in-flight options and more. The BTS report also found:

The airlines improved their mishandled baggage rate in 2009. The rate of mishandled baggage was 3.98 per 1,000 passengers in July, down from the July 2008 rate of 4.87 and June’s 4.17.

The overall amount of customer complaints is also down this year. The Department of Transportation reports it received only 827 complaints from consumers about service in July 2009, a significant drop from July 2008’s 1,093 complaints.