Air Canada and WestJet are the dunces of punctuality in North America, according to a ranking of airline punctuality in 2022 by Cirium, which analyzes the aviation sector.
The two largest airlines in Canada are thus respectively in tenth and ninth place in this ranking released on Tuesday.
Air Canada reported on-time arrivals, meaning a flight arriving within 15 minutes of the scheduled time, for approximately 54.51% of its 150,602 flights. This percentage reaches 59.10% for 94,663 flights for WestJet.
For a second consecutive year, Delta Air Lines (83.63%; 1,004,684 flights) was the most punctual airline in North America.
In Europe, the airline Iberia (85.87%; 91,154) leads the pack, while Polish Airlines is dead last (75.08%; 85,902). On a global scale, the American company Azul Airlines was named the world leader in airline punctuality in 2022 by Cirium (88.93%; 279,722).
The Cirium report highlights that in 2022, airlines “struggled to anticipate the sudden recovery in demand”.
“They had been disappointed on several occasions during the pandemic: while demand seemed to increase, it ended up reversing its trajectory in the face of new variants of COVID. When the recovery finally came last year, the industry […] had to deal with understaffing and insufficient capacity. Delays and cancellations have become problematic”, can we also read.
The data firm, however, believes that 2023 will be a “very promising” year for the aviation industry.