Delta Air Lines celebrates its second straight year as Cirium’s Platinum Award winner for global operational excellence. Azul Airlines was the global leader in on-time performance. Delta Air Lines led in North America, Iberia was the top performer in Europe, Azul in Latin America, Thai AirAsia in Asia Pacific and Oman Air in the Middle East and Africa.
LONDON – Azul Airlines has been named as the global leader for airline on-time performance for 2022 by Cirium, the global aviation analytics leader. The Cirium 2022 On-Time Performance Review is the global gold standard for airline and airport performance and it will be published later this week, containing results for all airline categories, more detail and analysis.
The past year saw a challenging operational environment across the world, particularly in Europe and North America, with many airlines and airports experiencing delays, disruptions and resource challenges. Others continue to emerge from Covid restrictions, especially in the Asia Pacific region. Despite this climate, many airlines and airports worldwide excelled.
For the second consecutive year Delta Air Lines was honored with the Cirium Platinum Award for global operational excellence. This award considers a number of factors including on-time performance, operational complexity and an airline’s ability to limit the impact of flight disruption to its passengers.
Alongside Delta’s Cirium Platinum Award, Azul was the global leader for on-time performance. The winners in the regions were Delta Air Lines in North America, Thai AirAsia for Asia Pacific, Oman Air for the Middle East and Africa, Azul in Latin America and Iberia in Europe. StarFlyer was the leading low-cost carrier and Haneda Airport was the top airport performer globally. More in-depth results are available below and will also be published here, with the full report due to be published later this week.
Jeremy Bowen, Cirium CEO said: “Congratulations to Delta Air Lines for its excellent performance in Cirium’s 2022 On-Time Performance Review, getting its passengers to their destinations on time as the sector revived during 2022.
Ramping back up operations so quickly after an enforced slowdown is not easy to do and the top-ranked airlines and airports in Cirium’s 2022 On-Time Performance Review deserve their recognition for this well-orchestrated achievement.”
During 2022 airlines had difficulty anticipating the sudden recovery in demand. They had been disappointed on several previous occasions throughout the pandemic, when it looked like demand was picking up, only for it to reverse course in the face of new Covid variants. When the recovery finally came this past year, the industry – including airlines, airports, air navigation providers and other stakeholders – struggled with understaffing and insufficient capacity. Delays and cancellations became issues. In time, however, operations greatly improved as the industry added workers and adjusted capacity. 2023 appears to hold great promise for the aviation industry.
Cirium looks forward to continuing to lead the way worldwide in monitoring aviation on-time performance in the New Year, as the industry adjusts to post-pandemic norms as they develop.
The company’s data is designed to provide industry stakeholders with a neutral, third-party perspective, based on the widest and deepest pool of data collected and curated from more than 600 sources of real-time flight information. These include the airlines themselves, airports, global distribution systems, positional data, civil aviation authorities, air navigation service providers, proprietary data partnerships and the internet. Cirium’s on-time performance data is backed further by a completely independent board of advisors, comprised of industry experts with an unbiased view of the aviation sector. The board’s oversight ensures accuracy and proper representation of all the information the company presents.
Global airline leaders were:
| Airline | On time ranking | On time arrival | Total flights |
| (AD) Azul | 1 | 88.93% | 279,722 |
| (NH) ANA | 2 | 88.61% | 162,370 |
| (JL) JAL | 3 | 88.00% | 165,981 |
| (LA) LATAM Airlines | 4 | 86.31% | 451,651 |
| (DL) Delta Air Lines | 5 | 83.63% | 1,004,684 |
| (AV) SA AVIANCA | 6 | 83.48% | 144,525 |
| (EK) Emirates | 7 | 81.30% | 137,589 |
| (UA) United Airlines | 8 | 80.46% | 789,200 |
| (QR) Qatar Airways | 9 | 78.32% | 152,377 |
| (AA) American Airlines | 10 | 78.29% | 1,076,100 |
The top performing global airports of 2022 were:
| Airport | On time ranking | On time departure | Total flights |
| (HND) Haneda Airport | 1 | 90.33% | 373,264 |
| (BLR) Kempegowda International Airport | 2 | 84.08% | 201,897 |
| (SLC) Salt Lake City International Airport | 3 | 83.87% | 226,545 |
| (DTW) Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport | 4 | 82.62% | 271,963 |
| (PHL) Philadelphia International Airport | 5 | 82.54% | 233,777 |
| (MSP) Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport | 6 | 81.95% | 276,346 |
| (DEL) Indira Gandhi International Airport | 7 | 81.84% | 411,205 |
| (SEA) Seattle-Tacoma International Airport | 8 | 81.04% | 383,250 |
| (BOG) El Dorado International Airport | 9 | 80.72% | 273,721 |
| (CLT) Charlotte Douglas International Airport | 10 | 80.68% | 457,871 |
The leading low cost carriers were:
| Airline | On time ranking | On time arrival | Total flights |
| (7G) StarFlyer | 1 | 95.23% | 21,894 |
| (6J) Solaseed Air | 2 | 94.53% | 27,486 |
| (FD) Thai AirAsia | 3 | 91.56% | 66,043 |
| (AD) Azul | 4 | 88.93% | 279,722 |
| (H2) Sky Airline | 5 | 88.74% | 27,161 |
| (HD) Air Do | 6 | 88.34% | 22,187 |
| (6E) IndiGo | 7 | 84.11% | 561,864 |
| (I2) Iberia Express | 8 | 83.80% | 35,665 |
| (I5) AirAsia India | 9 | 83.70% | 60,882 |
| (VY) Vueling | 10 | 82.04% | 197,546 |
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
