The most on-time airline in September 2018 was SriLankan Airlines, according to a monthly report by the flightstats website, which tracks information about dozens of airlines and airports all over the world. The second promptest airline was Delta Airline, 87% of whose flights landed on time.
Flightstats counts a flight as late if it lands more than 15 minutes after the originally scheduled landing according to the flight schedule. In third place was Japanese airline ANA with 86.6%. El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (TASE: ELAL) was near the bottom of the list in 39th place of the 41 airlines rated.
According to flightstats, 65.5% of El Al's flights landed on time and 34.5% landed late. The average delay of its flights that were not on time was 51.3 minutes, about the same at the global average for delayed flights. The global average of flights on time was 79.4%. The only rated airlines with higher rates of delay than El Al were Ethiopian Airlines (a 36% rate of late flights) and EgyptAir (36.6% late flights).
The fourth promptest airline was Indian carrier Jet Airways, followed by Qatar Airways in fifth and Singapore Airlines in sixth. South American LATAM Airlines group, which is scheduled to begin operating direct flights from Israel to Brazil in December, was in seventh place.
Flightstats also rates low-cost airlines. Not all airlines are rated, but according to the website, Japanese airline Air Do was the most punctual low-cost airline with over 90% of its flights landing on time. When low cost airlines' flights are late, the average delay is 49 minutes. The survey included 540,000 flights. Of the low-cost airlines operating in Israel, easyJet was in 35th place with a 72.3% promptness rate, Vueling Airlines was in 38th place, and Germanwings was in 44th and last place. Germanwings no longer operates flights to Israel. Ryanair was not included in the ratings, after having an especially tough month, following a pilots' strike in five European countries.
Flightstats also rates promptness of airports. Ben Gurion Airport was near the bottom in 351st place, based on 6,000 flights that took off in the September flight schedule (crowded because of the Jewish holidays). According to flightstats, 66% of flights took off on time from Ben Gurion Airport and the average delay for late flights was 48.3 minutes (a late flight is one taking off more than 15 minutes after the scheduled time).
The rating includes 2.2 million flights at 370 airports. The average delay of a late flight was 52 minutes. The most punctual airport was Koh Samui Island Airport in Thailand, where 96% of flights took off on time. A rating according to hubs that included 50 airports put Haneda Airport in Tokyo in first place with an 89% punctuality rate, followed by Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport in second and Detroit Metropolitan Airport in third.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 3, 2018
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