Flight Delays Down in July, DOT Air Travel Consumer Report Shows

Contact DOT 89-01 Bill Mosley 202-366-5571

Wednesday, September 5, 2001 -- The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) today issued its monthly Air Travel Consumer Report, with the department’s official data from its Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) about airline on-time arrivals, in addition to information about mishandled baggage and consumer disability and service complaints for July 2001. The report also contains information about airline bumping rates for the second quarter and the first six months of this year.

Flight Delays

According to the information filed with BTS, the 12 carriers reporting on-time data posted a 78.1 percent on-time arrival record in July, better than both June’s rate of 75.2 and July 2000’s 70.3.

Aloha Airlines had the best on-time arrival rate in July at 83.6 percent, followed by Southwest Airlines at 83.5 and Continental Airlines at 82.8. Alaska Airlines had the lowest percentage of on-time flights at 70.6, with United Airlines ranked eleventh at 71.7 and American Eagle Airlines tenth at 73.2.

The report includes a list of regularly scheduled flights that arrived late at least 80 percent of the time. In July, five flights made the list: Delta Air Lines flight 1993 from New York JFK to Atlanta, late 96.77 percent of the time; Southwest flight 1201 from San Jose, CA, to Las Vegas, late 88.89 percent; Delta flight 96 from Atlanta to JFK, late 83.87 percent; Southwest flight 1201 from Las Vegas to Phoenix, also late 83.87 percent; and Delta flight 1129 from Chicago O’Hare to Atlanta, late 80 percent of the time.

The report contains a note reminding consumers that flight delays can be caused by a variety of factors. The data on which this report is based do not identify the causes, only the occurrence, of flight delays.

These official on-time data are distinct from the data compiled by DOT’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which records delays while aircraft are under control of the air traffic control system (i.e., from actual gate pushback time to actual gate arrival time). FAA data cover some of the delays caused by weather and volume, for example, but do not cover delays at the gate such as those caused by aircraft mechanical problems, crew unavailability or many weather conditions affecting flights before they depart. The FAA data are useful for managing the air traffic control system but are not designed to measure airline passenger delays. The FAA data may be obtained at www.faa.gov/newsroom.

Flight Cancellations

The consumer report also includes data on the number of domestic flights canceled by the 12 reporting carriers. In July, the carriers canceled 2.1 percent of their scheduled domestic flights, fewer than the 3.0 percent canceled in June and the 3.2 percent canceled in July 2000. American Eagle had the highest percentage of canceled flights with 4.4 percent, followed by United with 2.8 percent and Delta with 2.7 percent. Southwest had the lowest rate of canceled flights at 0.7 percent, with Continental ranked second best at 1.0 percent and Trans World Airlines the third best at 1.2.

Mishandled Baggage

The 11 largest U.S. carriers posted a mishandled baggage rate of 4.48 reports per 1,000 passengers in July, better than both June’s rate of 4.53 and the 5.64 rate posted in July 2000.

Bumping

The largest U.S. carriers posted a rate of denied boarding, or bumping, of 0.91 per 10,000 passengers during the second quarter of 2001, slightly above the 0.86 rate for the first quarter but below the 1.25 rate for the second quarter of 2000. For the first six months of this year, the carriers posted a bumping rate of 0.89, down from the rate of 1.12 for January-June 2000.

Complaints About Airlines Service

Consumers registered 1,927 complaints about airline service with DOT in July, a 12 percent increase over the 1,721 complaints filed in June but 21.2 percent below the 2,445 filed in July 2000.

In addition, this report also contains a tabulation of complaints filed with DOT in July against specific airlines regarding the treatment of passengers with disabilities. Consumers filed a total of 40 disability-related complaints in July, a decrease of 13 percent from the 46 complaints filed in June and 24.5 percent below the 53 registered in July 2000.

Consumers may file their complaints in writing with the Aviation Consumer Protection Division, U.S. Department of Transportation, C-75, 400 7th St., S.W., Room 4107, Washington, D.C. 20590, by e-mail at airconsumer@ost.dot.gov, by voice mail at (202) 366-2220 or by TTY at (202) 366-0511.

The department reminded consumers who want on-time performance data for specific flights to call their airline ticket offices or their travel agents. This information is available on the computerized reservation systems used by these agents. Detailed flight delay information is also available on the BTS site on the World Wide Web at http://www.bts.gov.

The Air Travel Consumer Report can be found on DOT’s World Wide Web site at http://www.dot.gov/airconsumer. It is available in “pdf” and Microsoft Word format.