Flight delays are a drag. Worse than that, they can throw a wrench in multi-leg flight itineraries through missed connections.
Knowing how well airports keep their arrivals and departures on schedule can be really helpful when planning flight routes.
So, using the Department of Transportation’s data for 2011*, we’ve ranked the 25 busiest airports in the U.S.** by their timeliness (see table below).
On average, 85 percent of operations in and out of the 25 airports were on time. We think that’s a fairly respectable number considering all factors, though there is clear room for improvement (we’ll let you know how things change in a year).
At Baltimore, the top ranked of the major 25, nine out of 10 planes landed and took off on time. By contrast, less than three quarters of flights in and out of Newark (ranked 25th) kept to their intended schedule.
Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, Charlotte and Boston rounded out the top five performers, while Dallas-Fort Worth, San Francisco, Houston and Denver filled out the bottom five spots.
Notably, the latter four had, on average, double the traffic of their better-performing counterparts.
More than 80 percent of flights in and out of the five busiest airport hubs in the country – Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta, Chicago’s O’Hare, Dallas-Forth Worth, Denver and Los Angeles, respectively – arrived on time.
Atlanta, by far the busiest in the country with more than 61,000 operations, posted a reassuringly above average percentage of 86.1 percent – the best of the hubs.
The best performing airport in the whole country in 2011 was Cedar City in Utah – 94.8 percent of its 115 arrivals and departures were on, or ahead of schedule.
At the other end of the scale, Adak Island posted the worst performance. Way out on the far tip of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands (arguably one of the most remote of all U.S. territories), only 44.4 percent of its 18 flights took off or touched down when planned.
|
Rank |
Airport |
Total arrivals and departures |
Percentage on time |
|
1 | BALTIMORE MD (BWI) |
16,420 |
89.7 |
|
2 | SALT LAKE CITY UT (SLC) |
18,487 |
89.3 |
|
3 | MINNEAPOLIS MN (MSP) |
16,611 |
89.2 |
|
4 | CHARLOTTE NC (CLT) |
21,570 |
88.9 |
|
5 | BOSTON MA (BOS) |
16,288 |
88.4 |
|
6 | ORLANDO FL (MCO) |
20,795 |
87.8 |
|
7 | DETROIT MI (DTW) |
14,920 |
87.8 |
|
8 | SEATTLE WA (SEA) |
16,145 |
87.4 |
|
9 | CHICAGO IL (MDW) |
14,364 |
86.7 |
|
10 | LAS VEGAS NV (LAS) |
22,483 |
86.4 |
|
11 | PHOENIX AZ (PHX) |
31,276 |
86.1 |
|
12 | ATLANTA GA (ATL) |
62,383 |
86.1 |
|
13 | CHANTILLY VA (IAD) |
12,388 |
85.7 |
|
14 | SAN DIEGO CA (SAN) |
12,630 |
85.5 |
|
15 | NEW YORK NY (JFK) |
14,960 |
85.1 |
|
16 | PHILADELPHIA PA (PHL) |
14,453 |
84.4 |
|
17 | CHICAGO IL (ORD) |
49,303 |
83.6 |
|
18 | NEW YORK NY (LGA) |
15,420 |
83.5 |
|
19 | LOS ANGELES CA (LAX) |
35,093 |
83.2 |
|
20 | MIAMI FL (MIA) |
14,103 |
82.9 |
|
21 | DALLAS/FORT WORTH TX (DFW) |
41,445 |
81.4 |
|
22 | SAN FRANCISCO CA (SFO) |
24,827 |
80.7 |
|
23 | HOUSTON TX (IAH) |
29,602 |
78.6 |
|
24 | DENVER CO (DEN) |
39,571 |
78.1 |
|
25 | NEWARK NJ (EWR) |
18,823 |
73.4 |
*Date taken from the U.S. DOT Air Travel Consumer Report February 2012.
**There are 279 major airports in the country.
Written by insider city guide series Hg2 | A Hedonist’s guide to…
(Image: lrargerich)
