BTS Directs Three New Airlines to File Monthly Flight Delay Reports in 2006

PDF

Contact BTS 46-05 Dave Smallen 202-366-5568

Monday, October 17, 2005 - The U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) has directed Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and Mesa Airlines to report flight delay numbers in 2006 because the airlines' revenue has exceeded the required threshold for the monthly reports. BTS also removed St. Louis Lambert and Portland, OR International from the list of airports for which airlines are required to report flight delays.

BTS, a part of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), issued the directive because the carriers each took in at least 1 percent of scheduled domestic passenger revenue - $660 million - for the 12 months ended March 31. These air carriers now must report monthly flight delay, cancellation and cause of delay and cancellation data to BTS.

Frontier, Hawaiian and Mesa also will be required to file with the Department the number of reports of mishandled baggage they receive each month from passengers.

Frontier and Hawaiian currently report flight delay and mishandled baggage data voluntarily along with 18 other carriers required to report. In a related step, BTS allowed Independence Air to stop making monthly reports because the airline fell below the 1 percent revenue threshold. The changes require 20 carriers to report beginning with January 2006 data.

The three added carriers reported the following revenue for the 12 month period:

Frontier $671 million
Hawaiian $664 million
Mesa $839 million

Independence reported revenue of $618 million for the 12-month period.

St. Louis Lambert and Portland International were dropped from the list of airports for which flight delays must be reported because they did not account for at least 1 percent of the nation's total domestic scheduled-service passenger enplanements in 2004. This change reduces the number of reportable airports from 33 to 31. However, all reporting airlines have voluntarily provided data for all airports they serve in their domestic systems, and the Department makes this systemwide information available to the public.

Total domestic scheduled-service passenger enplanements in 2004 were 629 million. St. Louis Lambert reported 6.22 million enplanements and Portland reported 6.15 million.

For the complete list of carriers and airports see http://www.bts.gov/programs/airline_information/accounting_and_reporting_directives/technical_directive.html.

On-time performance and mishandled baggage data are published approximately 30 days after the end of the month in the Department's Air Travel Consumer Report, http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/ . Detailed information on airline on-time performance is available on the BTS website, www.bts.gov .