Two Different “Most On-Time Airlines” From Two Different Studies

Taylor Rains January 08, 2020

Shortly after last week’s reveal of the 2020 World’s Safest Airlines by AirlineRatings.com, Cirium and OAG both published their lists of the most punctual airlines of 2019. Here are the results.

The Results for the Most On-Time Airlines and Airports

Cirium and OAG are rival data analyst companies that both released reports outlining the most on-time airlines. Based on Cirium’s On-Time Performance (OTP) Review, Russian national carrier, Aeroflot, was given the title of the world’s most punctual airline. Jeremy Bowen, Cirium’s CEO, said, “Looking at the Russian carrier’s past year, it’s clear that Aeroflot has more controls in place over their environment than most. That helps enormously to drive operational efficiency. Russia’s successful year continues with Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport (SVO) also winning the top spot as the most punctual airport.” Aeroflot received on OTP of 86.68, with ANA coming in second with an OTP of 86.26. Delta came in first in the U.S. and third overall with an OTP score of 85.69.

However, OAG had a different result in its Punctuality League 2020, naming Garuda Indonesia the world’s most on-time mainline airline with an OTP of 95.01. The company named Hawaiian Airlines the world’s most punctual U.S. airline and LATAM the world’s top mega airline. According to OAG, mega airlines refer to the “world’s top 20 operators globally in terms of scheduled flights in 2019.”

How Did They Come up With the Winners?

Using over 600 data sources and tracking 100,000+ flights per day, Cirium was able to pinpoint each airline’s OTP, while OAG used the 57.5 million flights as a whole throughout 2019 to determine OTP. Both companies considered “on-time” as arriving at the scheduled arrival time or within 15 minutes of it, and acknowledged the difference in airline complexities and variables based on the size of that airline’s operation. The difference in results simply boils down to how each company categorized the airlines.