More than 5,500 WestJet flights in March were late arriving at destination

For the second consecutive month, Canada’s second-largest airline has operated more late flights than any other major carrier in North America.

Calgary-based WestJet, which operates many of its flights out of Pearson Airport in Mississauga, landed 64.18 per cent of its 15,863 March flights on time (see chart below), according to aviation data firm Cirium’s latest monthly On-time Performance Report that tracks the reliability of North America’s 10 major airlines.

That means just over 35 per cent of the carrier’s flights (about 5,552) were late arrivals, meaning 15 minutes or more past scheduled arrival time.

WestJet’s March performance was worse than its numbers in February, when 31 per cent of the carrier’s flights (about 4,520 of 14,592) were late arrivals.

While WestJet’s performance numbers have been on the decline the past couple of months, Canada’s largest airline, Air Canada, has shown improvement after consistently finding itself at or near the bottom of the OTP rankings throughout 2023.

In March, Air Canada landed just over 75 per cent of its 31,994 flights on time to place sixth on the monthly list, the flagship Canadian carrier’s highest ranking in well over a year.

The airline was eighth on the February list, operating 75.28 per cent of its 29,179 flights on time.

Numbers measuring on-time performance for all of 2023 placed Air Canada at the bottom of the rankings for the entire 12-month period, Cirium data revealed earlier.

Ranking ninth in March 2024, ahead of WestJet, was Denver-based Frontier Airlines, which operated 68.56 per cent of its 18,406 flights on time.

Long Island, N.Y.-based JetBlue, also a consistently poor performer among its major competitors in on-time performance, was eighth on the March list, landing 68.92 per cent of its 28,650 flights on time.

By comparison, a pair of familiar airlines based in the U.S. took the top two spots once again in March for best on-time performance.

At the top of the list for a seventh-straight month was Delta Air Lines, which landed 85.54 per cent of its 141,135 passenger flights on time, figures show.

Also once again, United Airlines placed second (82.82 per cent of 131,057 flights) to continue its string of consistent monthly performances.

Alaska Airlines was third on the March list (78.79 per cent of 35,358 flights) while consistent top-three performer American Airlines fell to fourth (78.49 per cent of 179,639 flights).

Each month, Cirium ranks the 10 largest airlines in a given region around the world based on their on-time performance rate.

Its numbers from March show of the 736,650 flights across North America (10 airlines combined), 74.88 per cent arrived on time. That’s down noticeably from 80.04 per cent in February.

Airlines’ on-time performance for December 2023, February 2024 and March 2024 appear above. Numbers for January 2024 were not made available. (Source: Cirium Aviation Analytics)

(Cover photo: Federal Aviation Administration)