India’s IndiGo among the world’s most punctual mega airlines

Indians are not exactly known for their punctuality. In fact, there are jokes aplenty about the Indian Standard Time (IST) and how it usually runs behind the clock for many. However, in a welcome change, breaking away from this notion, and an Indian airline finds itself among global carriers with the most on-time performance or OTP. The list of ‘Top 20 mega airlines’ put together by UK-based OAG Aviation Worldwide Ltd, an air travel intelligence company, features India’s IndiGo at fourth position with an OTP score of 81.22 per cent (arrivals only).

Flights that arrive or depart before 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival or departure, are considered on-time performers by the air travel intelligence firm. In the rankings, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways stood at the first and second place with an OTP of 85.27 per cent and 83.81 per cent respectively.

Further, the US airline majors Delta Air Lines (3rd), United Airlines (7th) and American Airlines (9th) also ranked in the list with all three achieving an OTP of 78 per cent or over. The ‘Top 20 mega airlines’ includes six airlines from Asia Pacific, six from European airlines, one airline from Latin America and seven from North American airlines.

In another list of ‘Top 20 LCC (low-cost carrier) by OTP’, put together by the same firm, three Indian carriers — IndiGo (9th), AirAsia India (17th) and SpiceJet (20th) — find mentions with an OTP of 81.22 per cent, 74.85 per cent and 73.72 per cent respectively.

Europe-based Vueling Airlines is ranked first amongst the ‘Top 20 LCCs’ for achieving an OTP of 85.25 per cent in 2017, and the airline is ranked 7th amongst all airlines. Vueling has made significant improvements in OTP this year, improving performance by over 13 percentage points.

In Asia Pacific (including Southwest Pacific), Hong Kong Airlines takes the top spot as the most punctual airline with an OTP of 88.83 per cent. IndiGo came at the 9th spot with an OTP of 81.22 per cent. In India, Mumbai-Delhi (3rd), Bengaluru-Delhi (11th) and Bengaluru-Mumbai (16th) are among the ‘Top 20 busiest domestic routes’, the report added.