Of the 10 largest airlines in North America, Canada’s leading carriers continued to struggle with on-time performance in July, according to statistics from aviation data firm Cirium. WestJet ranked seventh, with 62% of its flights arriving within 15 minutes of scheduled arrival, while Air Canada placed 10th of ten, with just 51% of flights arriving on-time.
The top performers in North America in July were Alaska Airlines at 82% on-time and Delta at 79%. The average for the top 10 was 66% — the worst by far of any of the global regions tracked in the Cirium report. Still, the five biggest U.S. non-budget airlines all topped the average of two-thirds of flights arriving on time.
Air Canada told Canadian Press that several factors impacted its on-time rate in July, including a continuing shortage of air traffic controllers and seasonal thunderstorms impacting operations. Another factor is high demand – the AC fleet is flying full and fully utilized. That’s good news, but it can also mean long recovery from disruptions.
“As with any system, when it is operating at full capacity it may slow processes down and take longer to recover when issues arise. That said, many of the delays were relatively short,” Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick told Canadian Press.
In July, global airline association IATA criticized North American air traffic control operators, including NAV CANADA. IATA said ATC staffing shortages “continue to produce unacceptable delays and disruptions.”
Air Canada says it working hard to improve its on-time performance – staffing levels exceed pre-pandemic numbers despite capacity that is still below 2019. It also working with scheduling to smooth out traffic peaks.