Good morning,
I did not see this posted (mods, please merge if I missed it).
IMO, it's good to see more on time arrivals and fewer lost baggage. That said, is the on time rating better because airlines are padding times or because it's really better. I have no doubt a relatively mild winter made life MUCH easier this year. I know I ran into nearly zero issues between LHR and BOS/JFK/IAD/ORD/ATL/MSP over the winter!
USA Today:
Airlines set on-time arrival record in 1st 4 months of 2012
Thanks to good weather and fewer planes in the skies, 84.5% of the flights operated by the 15 biggest airlines arrived on time from January through April. That's the best on-time arrival rate for the first four months of any year since the government began keeping records in 1995.
They also mishandled fewer bags in April, the Transportation Department's Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported Thursday. Just 2.6 out of every 1,000 passengers complained of lost, damaged or delayed luggage, compared with 3.3 a year ago the same time. That was the lowest rate for any month since the department started collecting that information in September 1987.