Airlines' November on-time performance falls, fewer flights cancelled

The U.S. Department of Transportation was out with its November performance report card for the nation's largest airlines and the grades are mixed.

Airlines canceled 0.9 percent of their domestic flights in November, down from 1.1 percent in October and better than the 1.0 percent in November 2013.

While more flights took off, more of them also arrived late. In November, reporting carriers posted an on-time arrival rate of 80.6 percent, a decline from the 83.5 mark in November 2013. However, that was better than the 80.0 percent posted in October 2014, according to the Department of Transportation's Air Travel Consumer Report released Tuesday.

About 29 percent of late flights in November were attributed to weather, the report said.

Hawaiian Airlines had the best on-time mark with 89.4 percent of flights arriving on schedule. Delta Air Lines was second with 86.6 percent followed by Alaska Airlines at 84.7 percent.

Envoy Air, formerly American Eagle, arrived on time just 69.3 percent of the time, earning the worst mark of airlines that reported their performance. Frontier Airlines arrived on time just 72.3 percent of the time followed by SkyWest at 76.4 percent.

Envoy Air, SkyWest and ExpressJet Airlines had the highest rates of canceled flights while Delta, Virgin Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines had the lowest rates of canceled flights.

Airlines lost 2.92 bags for every 1,000 passengers in November. That was up from 2.87 per 1,000 passengers in October and compares with 2.63 in November 2013.

Passengers who have complaints can file them in writing with the Aviation Consumer Protection Division, U.S. Department of Transportation, C-75, W96-432, 1200 New Jersey Av. SE., Washington, D.C., 20590.