The 10 Most Reliable Air Carriers

In 2022, which airlines most often arrived on time? The Cirium group unveils its “Top 10”, in which Air Canada and WestJet appear only a small wingtip for North America…

Welcome aboard this article, which will take you from the most punctual airlines to the best airports in the world, if we are to believe the ranking established for 2022 by Cirium, a company that specializes in the evaluation of the sector. airline for over 100 years.

Knowing which airlines are the most reliable in terms of schedules can be valuable information when choosing a leisure or business flight, especially if you have to plan connections, for example.

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Most Trusted in North America

For Cirium, an on-time flight is defined as a flight that arrives within 15 minutes of the scheduled time. To establish its rankings, the group takes into account a certain number of factors, including punctuality, the complexity of the activities and the capacity of the companies to limit the consequences of the disruptions for the passengers.

^{Source : Cirium, 2022.}

In this North American “Top 10”, only Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines performed more than one million flights in 2022. And Delta is a good first for a second year in a row.

Canadian carriers in the hot seat

In Canada, the year ended on a bad note with a weather bomb that wreaked havoc on airports and rail transport, leaving thousands of travelers in limbo just days before Christmas, some needing to sleep on the floor in airports or hotel lobbies.

The situation has been so chaotic that the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities looked into the matter last week. The elected officials were able to question the leaders or representatives of Air Canada, WestJet and Sunwing as well as the main airports in the country on the management of this exceptional situation.

On this occasion, Len Corrado, president of Sunwing, explained that the company did not have enough pilots to carry out all its flights – more than sixty were missing.

Everything we learned during the work of this government committee will in no way change the rank obtained by the two Canadian companies appearing in the North American bulletin of Cirium, WestJet and Air Canada, namely the 9^e et 10^e positions respectively. The other eight companies are American. With a score of 55% on the reliability of its schedules, Air Canada is well and truly close behind Delta, which occupies the first position with nearly 84% of flights on time.

Jacob Charbonneau, co-founder and CEO of Late Flight, is sorry for the results of WestJet and Air Canada: “These are astronomical discrepancies for Canadian companies. We really can do better! »

Mr. Charbonneau, who himself has traveled a lot, dwells more on the number of late flights than on the success rate in this list. He considers the delay rates of approximately 45% for Air Canada and 41% for WestJet to be too high, especially given the total number of flights operated: 150,602 for Air Canada and 94,663 for WestJet. Delta, the leading company, succeeds in making a million flights in the year, most of which are on time!

In defense of air carriers, it should be mentioned that the travel sector is emerging from a dark period and that screening for the coronavirus has complicated the processes for the entire air transport industry.

Air Transat does not appear in the ranking, probably due to the limited radius of its activities, its aircraft flying only to certain destinations from Canada.

Most trusted by global regions in 2022

North America: Delta Air Lines (USA)

• Europe: Iberia Airlines (Spain)
• Latin America: Azul (Brazil)
• Asia-Pacific: Thai AirAsia (Thailand)
• Middle East and Africa: Oman Air (Arabia)

The world leaders in air transport

^{Source : Cirium, 2022.}

Note: Azul Airlines, a discount carrier from Brazil, ranks world leader in on-time performance! Like what low prices do not rhyme with systemic delays.

The best airports

For the classification of airports, Cirium defines an on-time flight as a flight that departs no later than 15 minutes after the scheduled time.

Of all the airports in the world, Haneda, in Tokyo, Japan, is crowned the most successful in the world for 2022, thanks to on-time departures for more than 90% of flights, a result all the more exceptional that this part of the world is hit by extreme weather events every year due to its geographical location. We can imagine the complexity of managing a gigantic airport infrastructure there – and we measure the feat of ranking among the best in the world despite everything!

The “Top 10” of the best airports in the world particularly appealed to Mr. Charbonneau, from Late Flight: unlike this list, CNN Travel established last September the list of the worst airports in the world in terms of delayed flights. Three Canadian airports appear at the top of this table: Toronto in first place, Montreal in second place, and Vancouver in 10^e place.

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