American Airlines Is Struggling With On-Time Performance
Skift Take
Airlines like to strike a delicate balance with on-time performance. They want to be reliable, but they don't necessarily want sky-high on-time rates. An always-punctual operation is expensive.
Among U.S. airlines, American Airlines finished last in on-time arrival performance in June, a poor ranking for a carrier that has emphasized running a reliable operation.
Only 72.4 percent of American's flights reached the gate within 14 minutes of their scheduled arrival time, putting American behind not only United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines, but also ultra low cost carriers Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines. The U.S. Department of Transportation measures the on-time performance of a dozen of the nation's largest carriers, a group that includes regional airlines SkyWest Airlines and ExpressJet, but does not include Allegiant Air.
American said it is facing several challenges, including integration issues related to its merger with US Airways, poor weather in some of its hubs and challenges in Los Angeles, where it has tried to add flights despite considerable space constraints.
Post-Merger Woes
Structurally, American is less organized than other U.S. airlines because it still has not fully merged the two computer systems it uses to manage its operations.
To improve, American is trying to build a new Flight Operating System, a network of 500 different applications that will control the movement of all
