US airline delay and cancellation rankings (DOT data)
Southwest Airlines posted the lowest on-time arrival rate of the 18 US carriers the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) tracked in June 2026, at 65.3%; Delta Air Lines Network posted the highest, at 81.1%. This page ranks the worst airlines for delays US travelers search for, using that same BTS dataset — on-time rate, cancellations and diversions — for June 2026, the most recent complete month the source published as of this check. DOT complaint figures by carrier are a separate dataset this project has not yet loaded, so no complaint ranking appears below. None of this creates a right to compensation: US federal law sets no delay-compensation requirement for a domestic flight, whatever an airline’s on-time record shows.
Southwest Airlines posted the lowest on-time arrival rate of the 18 
US carriers the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) tracked in June 2026, at 65.3%; 
Delta Air Lines Network posted the highest, at 81.1%. This page ranks the worst airlines for delays Dataset
#Which US airlines had the most delayed flights?
65.3% is Southwest Airlines' on-time arrival rate for June 2026, the lowest of the 18 carriers BTS tracked that month, out of 120,933 arrival flights — a reliability figure, not a compensation trigger. Delta’s 81.1% rate, out of 90,247 flights, was the highest.
US airlines ranked by delayed arrivals, June 2026
Rank (1 = most delayed) | Carrier | On-time rate | Canceled | Diverted | Arrival flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Southwest Airlines (WN) | 65.3% | 0.6% | 0.4% | 120,933 |
2 | PSA Airlines Inc. (OH) | 67.1% | 6.9% | 0.4% | 20,871 |
3 | 67.7% | 2.6% | 0.6% | 86,464 | |
4 | Allegiant Air (G4) | 68.2% | 0.5% | 0.3% | 12,663 |
5 | Frontier Airlines (F9) | 69.7% | 2.0% | 0.3% | 19,104 |
6 | JetBlue Airways (B6) | 73.6% | 1.5% | 0.4% | 20,804 |
7 | GoJet Airlines LLC d/b/a United Express (G7) | 73.9% | 3.2% | 0.3% | 7,285 |
8 | 73.9% | 0.6% | 0.4% | 72,791 | |
9 | Endeavor Air Inc. (9E) | 74.1% | 3.1% | 0.3% | 22,018 |
10 | CommuteAir LLC dba CommuteAir (C5) | 74.5% | 1.7% | 0.4% | 7,448 |
11 | Envoy Air (MQ) | 75.8% | 3.4% | 0.4% | 29,207 |
12 | SkyWest Airlines Inc. (OO) | 76.2% | 1.4% | 0.4% | 73,675 |
13 | Republic Airline (YX) | 78.2% | 3.6% | 0.3% | 30,964 |
14 | Mesa Airlines Inc. (YV) | 78.6% | 0.5% | 0.4% | 6,275 |
15 | Horizon Air (QX) | 78.8% | 1.3% | 0.1% | 8,240 |
16 | 80.0% | 0.7% | 0.1% | 29,891 | |
17 | Piedmont Airlines (PT) | 80.2% | 2.0% | 0.4% | 12,901 |
18 | 81.1% | 1.1% | 0.3% | 90,247 |
American Airlines Network
Allegiant Air
Frontier Airlines
JetBlue Airways
United Express (G7)
Alaska Airlines NetworkSource: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes — transtats.bts.gov, June 2026, checked 2026-09-17.
On time, in BTS’s own definition, means a flight arrived less than 15 minutes after its published arrival time. This is the same underlying Airline Service Quality Performance dataset behind DOT’s narrative Air Travel Consumer Report; this table pulls the per-carrier figures directly from BTS’s own tool rather than from that report’s prose. Ten of the 18 codes above are regional carriers flying under a larger airline’s brand — GoJet, Endeavor, CommuteAir, Envoy, SkyWest, Republic, Mesa, Horizon and Piedmont report separately from United, Delta, American or Alaska even on flights sold under those names, and PSA Airlines flies as American Eagle. Breeze Airways is not among the 18 at all. A search for “American Airlines on-time rate” therefore needs both the American Airlines Network row and, for the regional flights sold under that brand, the relevant regional carrier’s row.
Breeze AirwaysArrivals only: this is on-time arrival performance, not departure performance, and it covers US domestic flights alone. A carrier’s on-time rate is a reliability statistic, not a finding of fault for any compensation regime. Download all 18 carriers, with the delay-cause minutes behind each row, as CSV.
Airport by airport: BTS domestic arrivals, July 2026
- Chicago O’Hare — 70.37% on time, the largest arrival count of the five airports
- Denver — 73.86% on time, the best of the five
- JFK — 59.12% on time, with 11.75% of arrivals canceled
- Newark — 62.70% on time and 2.22% diverted
- San Francisco — 51.59% on time, the lowest of the five
Chicago O’Hare
JFK#Which US airlines canceled the most flights?
6.9% of PSA Airlines' June 2026 arrivals were canceled, the highest cancellation rate of the 18 carriers BTS tracked that month, out of 20,871 flights. Mesa Airlines had the lowest, at 0.5%, out of 6,275 flights. Both operate as regional partners, not under their own consumer-facing brand.
US airlines ranked by cancellations, June 2026
Rank (1 = most canceled) | Carrier | Canceled rate | Diverted rate | Arrival flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | PSA Airlines Inc. (OH) | 6.9% | 0.4% | 20,871 |
2 | Republic Airline (YX) | 3.6% | 0.3% | 30,964 |
3 | Envoy Air (MQ) | 3.4% | 0.4% | 29,207 |
4 | GoJet Airlines LLC d/b/a United Express (G7) | 3.2% | 0.3% | 7,285 |
5 | Endeavor Air Inc. (9E) | 3.1% | 0.3% | 22,018 |
6 | 2.6% | 0.6% | 86,464 | |
7 | Frontier Airlines (F9) | 2.0% | 0.3% | 19,104 |
8 | Piedmont Airlines (PT) | 2.0% | 0.4% | 12,901 |
9 | CommuteAir LLC dba CommuteAir (C5) | 1.7% | 0.4% | 7,448 |
10 | JetBlue Airways (B6) | 1.5% | 0.4% | 20,804 |
11 | SkyWest Airlines Inc. (OO) | 1.4% | 0.4% | 73,675 |
12 | Horizon Air (QX) | 1.3% | 0.1% | 8,240 |
13 | 1.1% | 0.3% | 90,247 | |
14 | 0.7% | 0.1% | 29,891 | |
15 | 0.6% | 0.4% | 72,791 | |
16 | Southwest Airlines (WN) | 0.6% | 0.4% | 120,933 |
17 | Allegiant Air (G4) | 0.5% | 0.3% | 12,663 |
18 | Mesa Airlines Inc. (YV) | 0.5% | 0.4% | 6,275 |
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes — transtats.bts.gov, June 2026, checked 2026-09-17.
Cancellation rate and on-time rate track loosely, not exactly: PSA ranks worst on both, but Southwest, the worst carrier for on-time arrivals, ranks third-lowest for cancellations, at 0.6%. A heavily delayed month does not automatically mean a heavily canceled one, and the reverse holds too — Delta, the best carrier for on-time arrivals, still canceled more of its flights (1.1%) than five other carriers on this list.
Spirit Airlines does not appear in either table above. BTS’s June 2026 file reports exactly 18 carrier codes, and Spirit is not one of them — consistent with Spirit ceasing operations on 2 May 2026, before this reporting month began, not with a gap in the data collection. Read both rows from the same reporting month before comparing a carrier’s delays against its cancellations.
Spirit AirlinesA canceled flight, unlike a delayed one, does carry one federal money right. If the airline does not rebook you, you turn down what it offers, or you never answer and the flight goes without you, you are owed the fare back including taxes and any ancillary fees, wherever the carrier sits in this table. That is your own money returned, not compensation on top of it; the US refund rules carry the deadlines and the credit-instead question (Flight cancelled due to weather compensation).
Source: Spirit Airlines ceased operations 2 May 2026 — npr.org, cnn.com, cbsnews.com, checked 2026-09-15; 14 CFR 260.6(a) — ecfr.gov, checked 2026-09-15.
#Which airlines receive the most DOT complaints?
12 monthly editions a year is how often the Department of Transportation reports complaints by carrier in its Air Travel Consumer Report — a different DOT dataset from the on-time and cancellation tables above, and one this project has not yet loaded, so no airline is ranked here by complaint volume.
Source: DOT Air Travel Consumer Report — transportation.gov, checked 2026-09-15.
Complaints are counted by carrier in that monthly report, usually alongside a rate per 100,000 passengers boarded, so airlines of very different sizes can still be compared fairly. The same monthly report carries mishandled baggage and wheelchair figures, with oversales added each quarter, so a carrier’s baggage record is a separate ranking from its on-time one; this page ranks neither.
A complaints figure worth citing states the reporting month, the carrier list and the per-100,000-enplanements basis; a bare count without those three details cannot be checked against the DOT’s own report. Read the current Air Travel Consumer Report directly for the actual per-carrier complaint count and rate, or see how to file a DOT complaint about your own flight.
#What changes in delay-cause reporting from 19 October 2026?
19 October 2026 is when a new DOT reporting rule takes effect, adding a category for ten statutory events that move out of the existing “Air Carrier” delay-cause code. Every ranking above is entirely before that date, so none of it may be compared across it without flagging the break.
Source: Federal Register 2026-18040 (91 FR 56588) — federalregister.gov, checked 2026-09-15.
Airlines report delay causes to the DOT under five codes, and “Air Carrier” is the one most rankings quote as “within the airline’s control.” Nationally across all 18 carriers combined, June 2026’s delay-cause shares were 7.4% air carrier, 1.0% weather, 6.4% National Aviation System, 0.04% security and 9.9% late aircraft, of all arrival flights. From 19 October 2026, ten statutory events move out of the air-carrier code into their own category, so the same underlying delay could be coded differently on either side of the date.
Treat any comparison spanning 19 October 2026 as a comparison across two different measuring sticks, not a clean trend line. The rule does not add a new dollar figure, a new passenger deadline or a new compensation right — it only changes how a delay’s cause is labeled in the DOT’s own statistics.
#How is this ranking calculated?
18 carriers' figures above all come from one formula: on-time rate equals arrival flights minus delayed, canceled and diverted flights, divided by arrival flights — confirmed by reproducing BTS’s own displayed national and single-carrier percentages exactly. Cancellation and diversion rates divide the same two counts by total arrival flights.
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics publishes this data through its “Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes” tool. The raw file for June 2026 was downloaded twice, in independent sessions, and both copies matched byte for byte.
Four limits apply to every number above. First, this covers US domestic arrivals only, for the 18 carrier codes BTS’s file reported that month. Second, it is one month, not a year-to-date figure or a trend. Third, BTS prorates and rounds delay causes when a flight has more than one, so cause shares will not sum exactly to the delayed share. Fourth, and most important: none of this is a compensation determination. The Department of Transportation’s own wording is that for domestic itineraries airlines are not required to compensate passengers whose flights are delayed or canceled. A high or low position in this ranking describes reliability, not a payout.
Source: DOT Fly Rights (page last updated 26 Sep 2025) — transportation.gov, checked 2026-09-15; US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes — transtats.bts.gov, checked 2026-09-17.
Start from the US DOT hub for every other US rule this page does not cover, or see how this project verifies its datasets.
General information on US airline reliability statistics, not legal advice. For your specific case, contact the DOT Office of Aviation Consumer Protection or a consumer protection attorney.
#Sources
- US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes - transtats.bts.gov, June 2026 data, checked 2026-09-17.
- U.S. DOT, Air Travel Consumer Reports - transportation.gov, checked 2026-09-15.
- U.S. DOT, Fly Rights - transportation.gov, checked 2026-09-15.
- 14 CFR 260.6(a), automatic refunds - ecfr.gov, checked 2026-09-15.
- Spirit Airlines ceased operations 2 May 2026 - npr.org, cnn.com, cbsnews.com, checked 2026-09-15.
- Federal Register, Cause of Airline Delay and Cancellation Categories, 2026-18040 (91 FR 56588) - federalregister.gov, checked 2026-09-15.