Hawaiian Airlines was most likely to arrive on-time, while American Eagle, the regional-flying affiliate of American Airlines, had the worst rate.
Five planes were stuck on airport tarmacs for more than three hours, which is longer than allowed by federal regulations. Cancelations ticked up slightly from a year ago.
In the last five years, mergers have reduced the number of U.S. airlines and flights, which should help the carriers stay on schedule. But flights are extremely full — average occupancy on all the major U.S. airlines topped 85 percent in June — which means it can take longer for passengers to get on and off the plane.
The May results were still better than April, when airlines blamed furloughs of federal air traffic controllers for causing nearly one in four flights to be late and nearly one in 50 to be canceled.
“On-time performance was still pretty solid at nearly 80 percent as airlines navigated (stormy) summer weather,” said Jean Medina, a spokeswoman for Airlines for America, a trade group of the largest U.S. carriers. “It’s also important to note that customer satisfaction, as ranked by lower complaint rate, is improving.”
Consumers were most likely to complain about United Airlines or Fort Worth, Texas-based American Airlines and least likely to kvetch about Alaska or Southwest.
Hawaiian, which benefits from favorable flying weather, held its usual spot at the top of the on-time rankings, with 92.4 percent of its flights arriving within 14 minutes of schedule — that’s the government’s definition of on-time. Alaska Airlines and Delta Air Lines were next.
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