Fly Early If You Want to Depart and Arrive on Time
Flight delays occur quite regularly, but at certain times of the day they are much less frequent. If you need a flight that is almost guaranteed to meet the schedule, you better put on a cup of coffee – you need to leave early and early.
According to statistics from airline customers report the Ministry of Transportation of the USA for February, morning flights are the most punctual variants. In terms of scheduled departure times, the percentage of on-time flights starts from 92-95% in the early morning hours and then gradually decreases to 73% by the end of the day and early evening. So you can rethink that 5pm flight.
There are several reasons why early morning flights are more consistent. Firstly, these are the first flights from the airport and the first landings. There are no planes on the runway and there are not many traffic jams at the destination as all previous night flights have already landed. Second, early mornings tend to have the least adverse weather conditions. In the afternoon, the weather worsens and causes delays due to strong winds and thunderstorms. This means that your morning flight will not only arrive on time, but you will likely experience a lot less turbulence.
If time is your priority as a traveler, consider booking flights that depart between 6 and 7 a.m. It may sound crazy early on, but in February of this year, flights of all major carriers were almost 93% off schedule. time. Some airports, such as Honolulu (HNL), even scored an impressive 100% over that period . And this is also not a February accident. Data on more than 6 million flights since 2013 shows that choosing an early departure almost guarantees on-time arrival. The early bird seems to get the worm – the worm gets where it goes with little trouble.