DOT reveals reason for vast majority of flight delays

In this week’s airline news, the Transportation Department said the flight cancellation rate in 2023 dropped by almost 50% from the previous year, and the rate over the year-end holidays was even lower; DOT also said the vast majority of flight delays were caused by bad weather; a new study shows Delta had the U.S. airline industry’s best 2023 on-time performance and JetBlue had the worst; incidents of unruly passengers dropped again in 2023 but remain historically high; DOT investigates airline loyalty programs for deceptive practices; Southwest ends SFO-Burbank flights, plus domestic route developments from United, Alaska, American and others; there’s international route news this week from United, Air Premia, Norse Atlantic and the Romanian airline HiSky; United tightens first class meal policy; Capitol One will restrict airport lounge access for some card members next year. 

What a difference a year makes. After U.S. airlines’ significant operational problems (flight cancellations and delays) during 2022 — culminating in Southwest Airlines’ big meltdown during the Christmas-New Year’s holiday that year — the industry managed a major turnaround in 2023. The Transportation Department said this week that even though 2023 was “the busiest year for air travel ever,” with 16.3 million flights, the overall cancellation rate was under 1.2%, the best in a decade. By contrast, the cancellation rate in 2022 was 2.3%.  

And that was for the entire year. During the Christmas-New Year’s period that just ended (Dec. 17-Jan. 1), DOT said the flight cancellation rate was just 0.8%, vs. 8.2% a year earlier, “despite a record number of travelers flying during the busy holiday season.” (That 8.2% figure came mostly from Southwest’s cancellation of almost 17,000 flights the week after Christmas 2022, stranding 2 million travelers.) Just before the holiday crunch started last month, DOT imposed a record $140 million in penalties against Southwest for its late 2022 schedule collapse, and the agency suggested that enforcement action “sent a signal to airlines to step up for their passengers ahead of one of the busiest holiday travel periods on record.” Under DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the agency said, it has helped consumers secure more than $3 billion in refunds and reimbursements “and is advancing the biggest expansion of airline consumer rights in decades.”

The DOT report didn’t cover the number of flight delays last year, but it did say that more than 69% of them were caused by weather. That may have come in response to a plea to DOT and the Federal Aviation Administration from major airlines last week to improve the nation’s overburdened air traffic control system. According to Reuters, the airlines urged the federal agencies to “take all possible actions to find the appropriate balance between commercial and private aviation traffic with the goal of minimizing delays and cancellations for the traveling public.” The airlines also cited the ongoing shortage of control tower staff, and the FAA said it is already “taking immediate action to recruit, train and hire more air traffic controllers” as it tries to overcome an estimated shortage of 3,000 personnel.  

On the subject of flight delays, the aviation data firm Cirium issued its annual report on airlines’ on-time performance during 2023, finding that Delta had the best record among North American carriers with 84.7% of its flights operating on time. Alaska Airlines was in second place with an 82.3% on-time performance, followed by American (80.6%), United (80%), and Southwest (76.3%). Of the U.S. airlines in the North American category, JetBlue ranked at the bottom, with a 68.3% on-time rate. Not much better were Frontier (68.7%) and Spirit (71.2%). Canada’s WestJet posted a 69.3% on-time performance, and Air Canada had the worst on-time record of all 10 airlines in the North American category at 63.2%.

Incidents of in-flight passenger misbehavior dropped again in 2023, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, but the numbers still remain historically high. Unruly passenger incidents peaked in 2021, mostly due to some flyers’ refusal to comply with airlines’ masking requirements in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, then they dropped sharply after a federal judge disallowed mask mandates in April 2022. The FAA’s latest tally cites 1,987 unruly passenger reports for 2023 (Jan. 1 through Dec. 17), down from 2,455 for 2022. That 2022 number was 59% lower than the record 5,973 incidents in 2021. But the 2023 total is still almost twice as many as in 2020 and almost four times the 2017 number.

The sharp rise in incidents in 2021 and early 2022 prompted the FAA to declare a zero tolerance policy for acting up in flight, and to create a new effort with the Justice Department to pursue federal criminal charges against the most egregious misbehavior. “Interfering with the duties of a crewmember violates federal law,” the FAA said. “As part of the FAA’s reauthorization bill, FAA can propose up to $37,000 (in civil fines) per violation for unruly passenger cases. One incident can result in multiple violations.”

In other regulatory news, Reuters said it has learned of a new effort by the Transportation Department to investigate airline loyalty programs “for potential deceptive or unfair practices.” It said DOT officials have met with executives of several major airlines to talk about their frequent flyer programs’ “transparency practices when booking award tickets, transferability of miles and notice given before making changes,” as well as “the devaluation of frequent flyer miles over time that makes it harder to book award tickets.” Major loyalty programs have undergone some significant changes in the past few years, mainly by shifting their focus from distance flown or total flights logged to the amount of money spent by members.

Alaska Airlines is due to suspend flights from SFO to Washington Dulles and to Spokane from Jan. 8 through March 13, and from Monterey to Seattle from Jan. 8 through Feb. 14. In Southern California, Alaska plans to suspend its LAX-Washington Dulles and San Diego-Newark routes from Jan. 8 through Feb. 14. During those same dates, Alaska will reduce frequencies on several Bay Area routes, e.g. cutting San Jose service to Maui from six flights a week to one, SJC-Kauai from four a week to one, and SJC-Kona from seven a week to four. At SFO, Alaska is reducing frequencies from Jan. 8 through Feb. 14 to Honolulu, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Diego, Tampa, Chicago O’Hare, Salt Lake City, New York JFK, Palm Springs, and Everett, Washington. 

Effective Jan. 1, United Airlines first-class flyers only get a free meal if their flight is 900 miles or longer; the carrier previously provided meals on flights of 800 miles or more. According to View from the Wing, this will bring United’s policy in line with American’s and Delta’s. First-class customers on flights of 301 to 900 miles will get a premium snack basket, and those on shorter flights will get a free drink.