Big 3 DIA airlines score high on-time

The top three airlines at Denver International Airport all arrived at DIA better than 90 percent of the time in November, according to federal data released Thursday.

Nationwide, November was a stellar month for airline on-time arrival performance — the best month in the nearly 15 years with comparable records, officials said.

United Airlines, DIA’s No. 1 carrier by passenger totals, scored a 94.6 percent on-time arrival rate at the Denver airport, while No. 3 carrier Southwest Airlines’ on-time rate was 93.8 percent and No. 2 carrier Frontier Airlines’ on-time rate was 91.2 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Air Travel Consumer Report.

Overall, airline flights arrived 92.8 percent of the time at DIA in November, the report said. It was the fourth-best on-time arrival rate at any major U.S. airport, behind only Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and Phoenix.

JetBlue had DIA's best on-time arrival rate by any airline in November, at 97.2 percent, while AirTran Airways scored lowest, at 81.6 percent.

As for airline arrivals nationwide, United had a 93.31 percent on-time rate in November, No. 2 of U.S. airlines, while Southwest was No. 3 at 92.02 percent and Frontier No. 15 at 87.05 percent. The average was 88.59 percent for the 19 largest U.S. airlines — the highest it has been for a single month since the Transportation Department began charting the data.

Hawaiian Airlines had the highest November on-time arrival rate nationwide at 93.3 percent.

Atlantic Southeast Airways had the lowest November nationwide on-time arrival rate at 80.5 percent, followed by AirTran at 80.6 percent and Comair at 85.1 percent.

Denver Business Journal
Business First of Louisville contributed.