Travelers view the arrival and departure boards on the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., on Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2021.
Elijah Nouvelage | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Air travel demand continued to surge in 2024, led by a bounce back in international trips.
From January through October alone, revenue-passenger miles worldwide, a requirement metric, was up nearly 11% over last 12 months, in accordance with the International Air Transport Association. In 2025, IATA estimates aircraft departures of 40 million, up 4.6% from 2024.
Airlines scrambled so as to add flights and increase premium seating, which brings in higher revenue, especially on long-haul trips. Challenges from shortages of latest aircraft to financial strife continued for some carriers, nonetheless, many passengers didn’t face the identical flight disruptions as they did during acute staffing shortages coming out of the pandemic.
An Aeromexico airplane prepares to land on the airstrip at Benito Juarez international airport in Mexico City, Mexico.
Edgard Garrido | Reuters
Probably the most on-time airlines spanned the globe, in accordance with a rating released Thursday by Cirium. The aviation data firm considers punctuality an arrival that happens inside quarter-hour of the scheduled time. Delta Air Lines topped the North American rating despite its struggle to recuperate from the CrowdStrike outage in July that canceled hundreds of flights.
Here’s how the world’s carriers fared:
(On-time rate in parenthesis)
- Aeromexico (86.7%)
- Saudia Airlines (86.35%)
- Delta Air Lines (83.46%)
- LATAM Airlines (82.89%)
- Qatar Airways (82.83%)
- Azul Airlines (82.42%)
- Avianca (81.80%)
- Iberia (81.58%)
- Scandinavian Airlines (81.40%)
- United Airlines (80.93%)
And listed here are the rankings for North American airlines:
