Posted on 01/17/2008 4:37:44 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
The World's Most-Delayed Airports
Brian Wingfield, 01.14.08, 3:50 PM ET
Washington, D.C. - If you're sitting on the tarmac, waiting for your plane to take off in Chicago or London or Asia, take heart. Things could be much worse. You could be in Brazil.
In our tallying of the world's most delayed airports, the flight hubs in that country appeared at or near the top of our lists for both late arrivals and departures. At Brasilia International Airport, the world's worst for on-time departures, slightly less than 27% of all flights took off within 15 minutes of their scheduled departure time in 2007, according to FlightStats, a service that tracks historical and real-time flight information.
In Pictures: The World's Most-Delayed Airports
At Sao Paolo's Guarulhos and Congonhas International Airports only 41% and 43% of all flights, respectively, left on time, making them the third and fourth worst cities for departures. (Rio de Janeiro's main airport has roughly the same miserable departure reliability, though it didn't meet our criteria because of its relatively small size.) Sao Paolo is also one of the worst places in the world for arrivals. Just 54% of the flights at Congonhas and 59% of the flights at Guarulhos arrived as scheduled last year.
Brazil, of course, isn't the only country with a poor track record for flight delays. At Beijing Capital International Airport, which is expanding in preparation for the summer Olympics later this year, just 33% of its flights took off on time in 2007, putting it just behind Brasilia on our list of worst departures. Egypt's Cairo International, Africa's second busiest airport behind Johannesburg, only saw 47% of its flights take off on time last year. The average wait: 43 minutes. And at sprawling Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris--the worst place in Europe to catch a timely flight--barely 50% of its commercial passenger planes left as scheduled.
Airport authorities typically use arrival times when tracking late flights, which are considered delayed if they reach their destination at least 15 minutes behind schedule. According to conventional wisdom, pilots can make up for lost time on the ground once they're in the air. But travelers find few things more frustrating than having to wait more than necessary at their gate or on the runway. So we've included departure delays in our rankings.
Of course we looked at arrivals as well. If you flew to Mumbai or Delhi last year, more often than not your plane did not arrive on time. The international airports in those cities were the world's worst for timely arrivals. Officials from the India delegation of the International Civil Aviation Organization say modernization efforts are underway at many of the country's major airports to keep pace with India's explosive economic growth.
In the U.S., New York City has become synonymous with delayed flights as commercial and corporate jets crowd limited airspace over the city. With just 58% of its flights arriving on time in 2007, LaGuardia airport beat out Newark International (slightly more than 58% arrived as scheduled) for the worst airport in the U.S. for arrivals. They round out the top five of the world's worst airports for delayed arrivals. Incidentally, John F. Kennedy International--New York's largest airport with 44 million passengers annually--was barely behind them, with more than 40% of its flights arriving late.
Robert Poole, founder of the Reason Foundation and a frequent adviser to the U.S. government on transportation issues, says that, in New York, airlines have caused the delay problem by substituting smaller planes for larger ones. At JFK, the number of planes with less than 100 seats has grown by 128% during the last 5 years.
"The best remedy for this is to make airlines pay a market price for using the runways," says Poole. To solve the problem, the Bush administration has proposed implementing "congestion pricing," where airlines would pay an additional fee if they schedule flights during peak hours. Predictably, airlines are very much against the idea. Stay tuned, as the fight will surely heat up in 2008.
A word about the methodology of our rankings: We considered only those international airports that served at least 10 million passengers in 2006, according to Airports Council International, a Geneva-based industry group for the world's airport operators. (Data for 2007 has not yet been released). For flight arrival and departure statistics, we relied primarily on information supplied by FlightStats, which has data for all of 2007. The U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics and the Association of European Airlines have not yet released their flight punctuality statistics for the end of 2007, though we also examined what they do have on record for last year. Of the 100-plus airports we considered, those in European and American cities tended to have fairly mediocre records for on-time arrivals and departures.
Where are the least delayed airports in the world? Korea and Japan. Nearly 95% of commercial flights at Seoul's Gimpo International Airport arrived on time last year, making it the world's most efficient airport for arrivals. It was followed by Jeju International (94% on-time arrivals), the third largest airport in South Korea.
In Japan, Osaka Itami International airport had the most timely arrivals--just 8% of its flights didn't land on schedule in 2007. But the country had by far the best track record for on-time departures--six of its airports are in the top 10. Osaka Itami leads the pack, with 97% on-time departures in 2007; Tokyo's Haneda airport, which saw more than 66 million people pass through its terminals, was second best. Only 7% of the flights departed late there.
As policymakers try to figure out how to make flights more efficient in New York and other U.S. cities, seems like the obvious place to look for guidance is the Far East.
--Additional reporting by Robert Malone
Brasilia International (BSB)
Worst Departure Rank: No. 1
In 2007, less than 27% of Brasilia's flights left on time. Average wait time: 52 minutes. Not good for a capital city airport with more than 10 million passengers passing through per year. For airports serving 10 million passengers or more, Brazil's airports had the worst track record for on-time arrivals and departures in 2007.
Beijing Capital International (PEK)
Worst Departure Rank: No. 2
Beijing hosts the summer Olympics in 2008, and if last year's records are any indication, the city's main airport has much improvement to make on flight delays. In 2007, barely more than 33% of its flights took off on time. PEK is the busiest airport in China, serving nearly 49 million passengers in 2006, the most recent figures available. A major expansion is planned for later this year.
Sao Paulo Guarulhos International (GRU) and Congonhas International (CGH)
Worst Departure Rank: No. 3 (GRU) and No. 4 (CGH)
In 2007, there was only a slight difference in the on-time departure records for Sao Paulo's two main airports, so we group them together here. Only 41% of the flights at GRU took off on time, 43% for CGH, the busier of the two for passenger traffic. Both are managed by Infraero, Brazil's airport authority
Cairo International (CAI)
Worst Departure Rank: No. 5
With 10.8 million passengers in 2006, Cairo is home to Africa's second busiest airport, after Johannesburg. But it's the continent's worst for reliable departures, with only 47% of its flights leaving on time in 2007. The average wait: 43 minutes. For arrivals, Egypt's main airport isn't much better. Nearly 44% of its flights did not arrive as scheduled last year.
Paris Charles de Gaulle International (CDG)
Worst Departure Rank: No. 6
Because it is so vast, France's main international airport is notorious for long distances between terminals. Good thing then that barely 50% of its flights departed on time in 2007, making it Europe's worst major airport for on-time departures. Travelers didn't have much time to tarry, however: More than half of those late flights took off less than 30 minutes after their scheduled departure.
Chhatrapati Shivaji Mumbai International (BOM)
Worst Arrival Rank: No. 1
India's busiest airport in terms of passengers (21.4 million in 2006) is also the world's worst for on-time arrivals. Last year, slightly more than 44% of its flights arrived as scheduled, with an average delay of 45 minutes. Departures from Mumbai were much more reliable, with 72% leaving on time.
Delhi Indira Gandhi International (DEL)
Worst Arrival Rank: No. 2
When it comes to late arrivals, India's second busiest airport in terms of passengers (19.4 million in 2006) looks strikingly similar to the busiest, in Mumbai--just more than 45% of the flights arrived on time last year. Airport authorities are in the midst of expanding most of India's major airports to keep pace with the country's astounding growth.
Sao Paulo Congonhas (CGH)
Worst Arrival Rank: No. 3
As the third worst major airport for on-time arrivals and fourth for on-time departures, Congonhas deserves the title "World's Most Delayed Airport." Only 54% of its flights arrived as scheduled in 2007. Of those, 40% were at least 45 minutes late. Sao Paulo's other major airport, Guarulhos, also had difficulties with on-time arrivals--just 58% of its flights arrived as scheduled last year.
New York LaGuardia (LGA)
Worst Arrival Rank: No. 4
In the United States, New York's airports have become synonymous with delayed flights as the skies become crowded with commercial, cargo and corporate jets. In terms of on-time arrivals, the worst by a hair is New York's LaGuardia, with slightly less than 58% of all flights arriving on time in 2007, with an average wait time of more than an hour.
Newark International (EWR)
Worst Arrival Rank: No. 5
Busier than LaGuardia (36.7 million passengers in 2006, compared to LaGuardia's 26.5 million), Newark International is only slightly better than the New York Airport in terms of flight delays. Slightly more than 58% of its flights arrived on time last year. With 22% of its flights arriving at least 45 minutes late, Newark is the worst among the U.S.' major airports for excessively delayed arrivals in 2007.
“As policymakers try to figure out how to make flights more efficient in New York and other U.S. cities, seems like the obvious place to look for guidance is the Far East.”
Without compromising safety, of course. I don’t want maintenance to just eyeball stuff on the ground and go “Ok, looks good...don’t want to hold up the plane.”
I have been in a bad delay in Beijing. People were getting mad, pounding on doors and were ready to storm the tarmac.
The quickest way to become the next "involuntary" organ donor in China. On the other hand, somebody may get a liver or a kidney he desperately needed. So it may not be all bad.:-)
It would help a great deal if the airlines would not schedule arrivals and departures all at or near the same time.
I'm surprised that Chattanooga's Lovell Field (CHA) didn't make the top ten. I've flown out of CHA at least 150 times, mostly on Delta's ASA, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've departed on time......but that has more to do with ASA's mismanagment more than anything else.....
I was really amazed that people felt free enough to act like that. Police took a couple of people away, but I think they may eventually have been on the flight. I also had a 6 hour delay on a flight from Shanghai to Beijing because of bad weather in Beijing. We finally took off at 3 am. Being in the dark about what was going on was annoying, but the worst part is we were connecting to our flight home to Detroit and I was REALLY ready to get home by then!
The skeptic in me thinks that the airlines actually like weather delays so they have an excuse to cancel unprofitable and low load flight and roll the passengers over to fill the later flights or even the next day. Of course, when the passengers complain they simply raise their hands and say "its the ATC" (which is not essentially true) and they are not required to reimburse passengers who miss connections or are stranded that night.
One thing great about Southwest Airlines is that they do NOT cancel flights on a whim like other major airlines.
I highly doubt the delays are due to CHA, particularly if you are flying Delta into ATL. ATL is also overloaded with flights and any kind of mild weather problems cause significant delays in the arrivals and departures. Even if weather is perfect in ATL you can still expect delays because of the high number of Delta flight that get caught up in the Northeast delays and henceforth delay later departures for that particular plane.
Is there another way? LOL! I haven't checked recently, but I think ASA only fly to ATL out of CHA, so you would be correct there. Same thing with US Air and Charlotte or PIT.
I have experienced a lot of delays with ASA that weren't related to ATL backups. I have not see that with US Air. ASA seems to have a lot of trouble with things like flight crews that didn't show, equipment that wasn't ready (even though it had been on the ground overnight), etc. I guess that's why my airline pilot buddies call ASA the "after school airline".....
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