Here’s more red meat for NextGen backers/critics and folks who are just sick of the state of airline delays: The on-time rate for October fell sharply to 77.3 percent from last October’s 86 percent (that’s nearly 9 percentage points – a bit eye-opening) and from September 2009′s 86.2 percent.
Crikey. What in the world happened in October? DOT’s release flags severe weather but considering that the skies had distinctly LESS traffic in October vs. last year because of deep capacity cuts, I’m sort of at a loss. The “narrative” for the on-time discussion was turning a bit to show improved year-over-year results. Well, full stop on that narrative.
Weather accounted for just about 41 percent of all flight delays in October; last October it was just 34 percent, so that DOT’s argument that extra-bad weather drove this number.
I don’t do the fancy chart that Terry does because I’m just not that skilled, but after the click I’ll have some highlights from the DOT release.
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