The world's most punctual airlines

A solid on-time performance is vital to success in the increasingly competitive world of commercial aviation. After being named the world's most punctual airline for four years in succession, Latvian flag carrier airBaltic has now been usurped by Panama's Copa Airlines. That's according to the latest edition of OAG's Punctuality League which tracked 58 million flight records in 2018 to determine the airlines with the best on-time performance.

OAG defines on-time performance as a flight that arrives or departs within 15 minutes of its scheduled arrival/departure time. That also takes into account instances of cancellation. Last year, 89.79 percent of Copa Airlines flights operated on schedule, slightly ahead of airBaltic's 89.17 percent. Panama also did well in the airport segment with Panama City named the most punctual medium-sized airport worldwide.

Only two US airlines made the list of the top-20 most punctual in 2018. Hawaiian came fourth with an on-time performance of 87.52 percent while Delta came in 16th with 83.08 percent of its flights operating on schedule. Among airports with 30 million departing seats or more, Tokyo Haneda had the best on-time performance followed by Atlanta and Singapore Changi.