Cheap airplane tickets and cheap vacation packages tend to be enjoyed more when travelers flights depart on-time. Slightly over 77 percent of all May domestic flights by U.S. airlines arrived within 15 minutes of schedule. That was a point below airlines average monthly performance and almost three points less that the results for May 2010.
There was a surprising spike in runway delays in May, which had almost been eliminated since the Department of Transportations (DOT) rule calling for very high penalties for runway delays of three hours or more. In May of 2010 there was only one such delay and since then there have been several months with no such delays.
14 American Eagle flights sat on the runway at OHare in excess of three hours on May 29th (the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend) due to severe thunderstorms. In April this airline along with Southwest each had one plane sit on a runway for an extended period of time.
The average cancellation rate in May was 2.1 percent vs. 1.2 percent in 2010. American and American Eagle experience particularly higher cancellation rates in May of 5.5 percent and 6.6 percent respectively. Combined, these two airlines were responsible for almost half of the industrys canceled flights for the month.
Excluding American and American Eagle, all other major airlines experienced cancellation rates of 1.3 percent or lower.
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