See How Long Your Christmas Flight Will Be Delayed at These US Airports
If you are flying for Christmas this year, plan for a delay in your schedule. And if you want to optimize, check the delay frequency and average latency at different airports. As a useful piece of corporate data journalism, the artificial Christmas tree site Treetopia analyzed government flight data for last year’s holiday season and listed average delays at 20 airports and nine airlines .
For example, if you are leaving Washington Dulles, there is a 29% chance of being detained, with an average delay of 12 minutes based on last year’s results. There is a 0.77% chance of canceling your flight.
But if you leave the equally busy Chicago Midway, expect to be delayed – 77% chance – and set aside 25 minutes for that delay. And if you’re flying from Albuquerque, be aware that over 1 in 20 of their holiday flights were canceled last year.
Your choice of airline can also affect your chances of delay, although this report does not indicate how much this is due to certain airlines that have certain hubs. But in the last holiday season, a third of Delta’s flights were delayed, and only a third of flights to the southwest were on time . Average latency ranged from 6 minutes for Hawaiian Airlines to 27 minutes for JetBlue. And Treetopia found American Airlines had the highest flight cancellation rate at 2.6%.
This is only a very rough indication of the postponement of the holidays this year. Situations change from year to year, and airline performance is constantly changing . And many delayed flights manage to catch up and arrive on schedule. But many don’t.
The main finding is that at every major airport, due to the high congestion and weather conditions during the holidays, delays are frequent. So leave some cushion in your schedule, psychologically prepare for delays, and be prepared to deal with it. If you miss an important Christmas event because you haven’t left a margin in your travel plans, then charging the airport won’t help you.