WASHINGTON — Your flight was more likely to be late in January than a year ago, mostly because of poorer performance at several smaller airlines.
Some 81 percent of flights arrived within 14 minutes of schedule during January, the government said yesterday. That’s down from 83.7 percent in the same month last year, although it’s better than in December.
Virgin America had the best on-time rating at 93.1 percent, knocking frequent leader Hawaiian Airlines to second place.
Frontier Airlines, ExpressJet and American Eagle got the worst marks. All three scored at least 6 points worse than they did a year ago.
Among the five largest US airlines, Delta had the best on-time record, followed by Southwest, US Airways, United and American. Delta and United both improved from a year earlier; the others got worse.
Among large airports, Newark Airport had the worst record for on-time arrivals, at 73.2 percent. The best on-time ratings were Las Vegas with 86.9 percent and Phoenix at 86.7 percent.
The figures were reported by the Department of Transportation.
Two domestic flights were stuck on the ground longer than three hours, which can expose the airline to fines. One was operated by Chautauqua Airlines at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, and the other was a Spirit Airlines flight to Las Vegas that was diverted to Bowhead City, Ariz.
About 1.5 percent of all scheduled US flights were canceled, the same as in January 2012.