OAG reveals global on-time 2015 performance results
For the first time, this year’s league table incorporates enhanced depth and coverage from OAG’s newly consolidated flight status and day-of-travel database, OAG flightview.
Latvian airline airBaltic once again leads the airline rankings, with an average OTP rating of 94.39%, followed by Panama’s Copa Airlines (91.69%) and Brazil’s low-cost carrier (LCC) Azul (91.03%) in third place – which places it as the leading LCC for OTP. In the LCC category, Latin America leads the way with Azul (91.03%) and Gol Airlines (86.45%) in the top three and Norwegian (86.9%) takes second place.
Japan dominates the airport categories, with Osaka Itami Airport (93.85%) rated as the ‘Best Small Airport’ and Tokyo Haneda Airport (91.25%) as the ‘Best Large Airport’. Also in ‘Best Small Airport’, Brussels South Charleroi Airport (93.61%) and Panama City Tocumen International (92.55%) are ranked second and third respectively. The ‘Best Medium Airport’ category is led by Copenhagen (88.53%) followed by Moscow Sheremetyevo International Airport (88.48%) and Helsinki (88.43%). After Tokyo in the ‘Best Large Airport’ category, Munich (87.71%) and São Paulo Guarulhos International Airport (87.47%) are ranked second and third respectively.
From a database of more than 50 million flight records, and incorporating data from OAG’s flightview flight status database, OAG produces the annual benchmarking report for the OTP of Top Airports (Small; Medium; Large), Top Airlines (Mainline; LCCs) and Airlines by Region (Europe Middle East & Africa or ‘EMEA’; China; Asia Pacific; The Americas). For 2015, OAG has introduced new categories for Most Improved Airports and Airlines, Top Meetings and Convention Cities and also benchmarks OAG’s Megahubs.
Top 10 EMEA Airlines
Also available: Asia Pacific; Latin America; The Americas.
Rank
Airline Name
Code
Average OTP 2015
1
airBaltic
BT
94.39%
2
Finnair
AY
89.52%
3
Austrian Airlines
OS
89.28%
4
LOT - Polish Airlines
LO
88.88%
5
KLM
KL
88.45%
6
SAS
SK
88.21%
7
Monarch Airlines
ZB
88.18%
8
Iberia
IB
87.53%
9
Flybe
BE
87.47%
10
Qatar Airways
QR
87.12%
Top 10 EMEA Airports
Rank
Airline Name
Code
Average OTP 2015
1
Brussels South Charleroi
CRL
93.61%
2
Stavanger
SVG
91.15%
3
Bergen
BGO
90.91%
4
Cologne Bonn
CGN
90.42%
5
Warsaw
WAW
89.87%
6
Bristol
BRS
88.64%
7
Hannover
HAJ
88.59%
8
Copenhagen
CPH
88.53%
9
Moscow Sheremetyevo
SVO
88.48%
10
Helsinki
HEL
88.43%
Madrid Adolfo Suarez-Barajas Airport is well-placed at 12th in the ‘Best Large Airport’ category, a reflection of Iberia’s excellent operational efficiency within the IAG family. Iberia itself achieves eighth place in the EMEA Airlines category. The UK’s Monarch Airlines and Flybe perform well in EMEA Airlines, achieving seventh and ninth place respectively.
John Grant, senior analyst, OAG, says: “Runway capacity of course continues to be an issue for the UK. Heathrow and Gatwick’s OTP ratings are both down on last year, a real reflection of how far those airports are stretched for capacity. In 2014, Heathrow and Gatwick’s scheduled flights were 471,272 and 248,816 respectively. Compare that to 2015, when the scheduled flights were 472,604 (0.2% increase) at Heathrow and 259,611 (4% increase) at Gatwick, we can see that while both airports have worked hard in the last few years to fill the off-peak hours, they have now almost reached full use.”
Grant continues: “The OTP of airlines and airports plays a valuable role in the industry and has the power to bring about positive change in the future of aviation. The benchmarking tool is a powerful ‘key performance indicator’ as well as a potential service differentiator for marketing the products to travellers. An airline’s schedule is a key element of what the traveller is buying – passengers need to be able to plan around realistic and reliable arrival times and connecting time requirements. Airline planning and operations also rely on these schedules, without which fuelling, catering and airport services cannot be planned.
“The OTP rankings of airports will always differ across the regions as operational issues such as congestion, competition from other transport modes and scheduling come into play. Prudent expectation setting means keeping schedules realistic in the face of increasingly congested hub airports, to help the integrity of that airline’s entire schedule.”
Grant concludes: “In this digital age, passengers have access to more data than ever before. Travellers can see flight delay information while on the move as easily as the airline and airport staff. This means passengers are more engaged and better informed about delays and OTP than in the past. The benchmarking of OTP data remains as important as ever.”