Originally Posted by
warrens
No. Not true. The average OTP of the entire airline is mostly a useless metric except as an Internet forum and media talking point. You might as well be talking about the average price of everything at a grocery store, or the average price of "a car".
Well how else can airlines compare their operational reliability with other airlines? To a certain degree, OTP is a standard metric to allow such comparison.
Otherwise going route by route would include inherit bias. AC could argue that they don't fly PHX-LAS or AUH-RUH with near perfect weather and no congestion at either airport, that's why their OTP is always lower than others. AC would have no incentive to improve.
Of course other factors do play into OTP, such as schedule padding, turnaround time, hub vs. p2p, aircraft utilization, crew deployment, and even maintenance schedule, etc. But in short of adjusting for all of that, OTP is one of the most simplest metric to calculate and compare.