United has again captured the on-time arrival award for the month of September (88.9% of flights arrived on time), with US Airways (86.6%) and Continental (85.6%) close behind. Surprisingly, at least on first glance, Southwest Airlines finished last (75.8%) among major U.S. domestic airlines.
My first thought was dismiss the veracity of the data, concluding that United had just padded their flight schedules more than Southwest. But after comparing Untied and US Airways with Southwest on a multiple routes (two examples below), I was forced to reconsider.
Take a look at the following sample flights (n/s flights departing on the same day around the same time):
Los Angeles to Baltimore
Southwest 4hrs, 50min (737)
United 5hrs, 1min (A320)
Baltimore to Los Angeles
Southwest 6hrs, 0min (737)
United 5hrs, 34min (A320)
Phoenix to Philadelphia
US Airways 4hrs, 27min (A321)
Southwest 4hrs, 25min (737)
Philadelphia to Phoenix
US Airways 5hrs, 1min (A321)
Southwest 5hrs, 30min (737)
Much to my surprise, Southwest pads more than United or US Airways, at least on westbound flights. I was back to the drawing board. I dismissed weather because Southwest has five mini-hubs spread around the country rather than a few monster hubs and even if weather was particularly bad at Midway in Chicago, United has many, many more flights departing on the other side of the city at O’Hare.
That left load factor and turnaround time. United’s September load-factor was 83.7%. Southwest’s was only 75%, so that’s doesn’t explain the disparity. That leaves turn time. Unfortunately, I don’t have raw data to compare, but Southwest is known to more aggressively push shorter turnaround times than their competitors. But even if Southwest shaves a few minutes off doing this, United must be doing something right.
Bottom line, however, is that success in the airline industry is measured by profits and Southwest is still winning in that category (though I am optimistic that brighter days are ahead for even the legacies). Still, a little more padding would not surprise me in future Southwest scheduling.
As far as I can tell, all of the stories (and blog posts, and FT posts, etc) are based off of data from Flightstats, which I don’t believe is the official DOT source of ontime ratings.