Are U.S. Airlines Becoming Less Punctual?

Air travel in the United States has been in upheaval due to Transportation Security Administration staffing issues in connection to the partial government shutdown as well as weather and accident disruptions. Internationally, the war in the Middle East has led to fuel and, therefore, ticket prices rising, while at the same time leading to flight cancellations and reroutings, leaving behind passenger exhausted by wait times, schedule changes and communication breakdowns. On Monday, TSA workers started receiving back pay after President Donald Trump signed an order, but it remains unclear if salaries will be paid out going forward.

U.S. air travel has been called dysfunctional, chaotic, anxiety-inducing and even hazardous recently. While some experts see the issue as a “perfect storm of travel disruption,” others point the finger at the lack of regulations and government investment the U.S. air travel market, which has led to outdated equipment and near-monopolistic conditions on some routes.

A series of reports from Cirium shows how airport chaos might have affected the on-time performance of major North American airlines. The data indeed shows that the three biggest U.S. carriers – Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and American Airlines – have become less punctual over the course of the past five years. Last year was also the least punctual in the past five years for Alaska Airlines. For most of these carriers, 2022 also sticks out as an especially unpunctual year when airports and airlines had trouble ramping up their staff numbers again after two years of COVID-19 shutdowns.

The story is in some ways opposite for U.S. budget carriers Southwest Airlines, Frontier Airlines, JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines, which have all improved their on-time performance since 2022. However, their improved showings are only approaching the same levels as major carriers’ decreased punctuality, with Spirit and Southwest in the same 19-24% delay bracket as major airlines and Frontier and JetBlue still at a somewhat higher 25-28 percent.

Canadian airlines WestJet and Air Canada saw even bigger improvements in punctuality. While the country’s flag carrier saw 33% of flights arrive late in 2021 and had an even worse result in 2022 at 46%, this had changed to around 27% in 2025. Results from WestJet show a similar trend. Air Canada was involved in a fatal runway crash at New York’s LaGuardia airport on March 22. The incident is now being probed due to concerns that outdated equipment and short staffing might have contributed to it..

Research out of Harvard University recently compared flight delays over the course of 30 years and came to the conclusion that very long delays of more than three hours are now four times more common. Researcher Maxwell Tabarrok concludes that airlines simply lack the incentives to minimize delays because they are not paying for costs stranded travelers incur.