According to a new survey, Delta was the airline with the best on-time performance in 2022.

Choose Delta Air Lines if you want the most punctual airline operating in the United States.

According to recent information made available Thursday by the aviation analytics firm Cirium, the Atlanta-based carrier is on track to end 2022 with an on-time arrival percentage of over 84%.

The latest information shows that 84.1% of Delta's 959,987 flights from January 1 through December 15 arrived on time.
In Cirium's analysis, Delta took first place as the most punctual carrier for the second consecutive year.

A typical industry metric known as "A15" includes any flight that lands at its destination and makes it to the gate within 15 minutes of the original arrival time as an on-time arrival.

All flights accomplished in 2022 until December 15 are included in Cirium's data set.
71.91% of the more than 5 million flights that took off and landed in North America this year were on time.

Notably, these measures only take into account mainline operations; they do not include those run by regional affiliates like SkyWest or Republic. 

In terms of on-time performance, Alaska Airlines and United Airlines placed as the No. 2 and No. 3 runners-up, respectively. The complete ranking may be found at the bottom of this post.

The fact that Delta would top the list for 2022 may not come as a surprise to some aviation analysts since the airline has always positioned itself as the "on-time machine."

However, the pandemic has created a number of challenges for the aviation sector that have prevented on-time operations.
In fact, Delta's performance in 2019 won it the top rank for on-time performance, with an outstanding 85.69% performance. 

Airports and airlines have been understaffed during the pandemic, making it difficult to find a substitute crew or below-the-wing operator in the event of an emergency. This has resulted in what seems to be more staffing-related delays than before the pandemic.

Even the Federal Aviation Administration has struggled to staff its control centers at an acceptable level, which has forced some flights—particularly those going to and from Florida—to change routes or incur significant ground delays. 

Additionally, during the pandemic, airlines haven't traditionally been as quick to recover from delays and cancellations, and some big carriers had multiple meltdowns earlier this year.

Before the epidemic, what could have been an ordinary summer thunderstorm or a winter blizzard has grown significantly at several airlines.

All things considered, manpower issues, airspace limitations, and airport operations are the main reasons why airlines aren't returning as quickly as they have in the past.

Whatever the case, Delta was the best airline out of the bunch in 2022 in terms of on-time performance. 

North America's most reliable airlines 

The complete list of North American airlines with the highest on-time performance is shown below, per the annual Cirium report.