Air Travel Consumer Report Also Shows Improvement In On-Time Performance

The U.S. Department of Transportation has released its latest Air Travel Consumer Report, and the news from the reporting carriers is good.

Only 0.29 percent of the carriers' scheduled domestic flights were cancelled in November 2016, the lowest for any of the 263 months with comparable records beginning in January 1995, and below the previous low of 0.33 percent in September 2016, according to the Air Travel Consumer Report (ATCR) released today.  The reporting carriers canceled 1.0 percent of their flights in both November 2015 and October 2016.
 
In addition, the U.S. carriers reporting mishandled baggage data posted a mishandled baggage rate of 2.02 reports per 1,000 passengers in November, the lowest rate since mishandled baggage reporting started in 1987. The previous low rate was 2.06 in October 2016.  The November 2015 rate was 2.53.
 
The reporting carriers posted an on-time arrival rate of 86.5 percent in November 2016, an improvement over both the 83.7 percent mark in November 2015 and the 85.5 percent on-time rate in October 2016.
 
The consumer report also includes data on tarmac delays, chronically delayed flights, and the causes of flight delays filed with the Department’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) by the reporting carriers. In addition, the consumer report contains a tally of aviation service complaints filed with DOT’s Aviation Consumer Protection Division by consumers regarding a range of issues such as flight problems, baggage, reservation and ticketing, refunds, customer service, and disability. The report also includes data on oversales and information about the total number of animals that died, were injured, or were lost during air transport in November, as filed by the air carriers with the Aviation Consumer Protection Division.

(Source: U.S. DOT news release. Image from file)

FMI: www.dot.gov