Azul Airlines has been named as the global leader for airline on-time performance for 2022 by Cirium, the global aviation analytics company. The past year saw a challenging operational environment across the world, particularly in Europe and North America, with many airlines and airports experiencing delays, disruptions and resource challenges. Others continue to emerge from Covid restrictions, especially in the Asia Pacific region.
Despite this climate, many airlines and airports worldwide excelled. For the second consecutive year Delta Air Lines was honoured with the Cirium Platinum Award for global operational excellence. This award considers a number of factors including on-time performance, operational complexity and an airline’s ability to limit the impact of flight disruption to its passengers.
Alongside Delta’s Cirium Platinum Award, Azul was the global leader for on-time performance. The winners in the regions were Delta Air Lines in North America, Thai AirAsia for Asia Pacific, Oman Air for the Middle East and Africa, Azul in Latin America and Iberia in Europe. StarFlyer was the leading low-cost carrier and Haneda Airport was the top airport performer globally.
An on-time flight is defined as a flight that arrives within 15 minutes of the scheduled gate arrival. For an airport it is defined as departing within 15 minutes of its scheduled departure.
Jeremy Bowen, Cirium CEO said: “Congratulations to Delta Air Lines for its excellent performance in Cirium’s 2022 On-Time Performance Review, getting its passengers to their destinations on time as the sector revived during 2022. Ramping back up operations so quickly after an enforced slowdown is not easy to do and the top-ranked airlines and airports in Cirium’s 2022 On-Time Performance Review deserve their recognition for this well-orchestrated achievement.”
During 2022 airlines had difficulty anticipating the sudden recovery in demand. They had been disappointed on several previous occasions throughout the pandemic, when it looked like demand was picking up, only for it to reverse course in the face of new Covid variants. When the recovery finally came this past year, the industry—including airlines, airports, air navigation providers and other stakeholders—struggled with understaffing and insufficient capacity. Delays and cancellations became issues. In time, however, operations greatly improved as the industry added workers and adjusted capacity. 2023 appears to hold great promise for the aviation industry.