While Air Canada (AC.TO) and WestJet saw more planes land on time in 2024, Canada’s two largest airlines were still the lowest ranked when it came to on-time performance among North America’s biggest carriers.
That’s according to aviation analytics firm Cirium, which released its annual on-time performance report of global airlines on Thursday. On-time performance in the report is measured when a passenger flight arrives within 15 minutes of its scheduled time.
Air Canada saw 71 per cent of the nearly 386,000 flights it flew land on time in 2024, ranking it 9th out of the 10 largest airlines in North America, and behind Frontier Airlines in 8th (with a 72 per cent on-time arrival rate of about 221,000 flights) and JetBlue in 7th (with a 75 per cent on-time arrival rate of about 324,000 flights). Air Canada’s performance in 2024 is an improvement from the previous year, when Canada’s largest airline saw 63 per cent of about 376,000 flights flown arrive on time, resulting in a 10th place ranking.
WestJet also saw on-time performance improve over the last year, although it still fell in the North American rankings as airlines broadly saw timeliness improve. According to Cirium, 71 per cent of the approximately 192,000 flights WestJet flew last year landed on time, putting it at the bottom of the top 10 airlines. In 2023, WestJet ranked 7th, with 69 per cent of the more than 182,000 flights flown arriving on time.
Delta Air Lines once again topped the list of timeliest North American airlines, with 83 per cent of the 1.7 million flights it flew landing on time. It was followed by United Airlines, which saw 81 per cent of its 1.6 million flights land on time, and Alaska Airlines, with 79 per cent of its 433,000 flights on time.
Cirium also analyzed flight cancellations in 2024. In North America, Air Canada had the fourth highest number of flight cancellations at 10,816 out of 386,000 total flights. Ahead of it were the three largest airlines in the United States, each of which flew more than four times as many flights as Air Canada. American Airlines cancelled the most flights among North American carriers last year, with 28,649 (out of a total of nearly 2.2 million flights), followed by United Airlines with 26,704 cancellations (out of 1.6 million total flights), and Delta Air Lines with 17,959 cancellations (out of 1.7 million total flights). WestJet had the 7th most cancellations in North America, with 6,131 cancellations out of about 192,000 total flights.
Alicja Siekierska is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow her on Twitter @alicjawithaj.
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