UAE’s Emirates Airline and Etihad Airways ranked among the world’s top 20 most punctual airlines in 2022, according to OAG’s Punctuality League 2023 report.
Etihad and Emirates were ranked 19th and 20th respectively, with on-time performance of 81.14 percent and 81.13 percent. Both the airlines had one of the lowest flight cancellations rates of 0.55 per cent and 0.02 per cent last year. They were the only two Gulf carriers that made it to the top 20 list of 2022.
Globally, Garuda Indonesia, South Africa’s Safair, German low-cost carrier Eurowings, Thai AirAsia and South Korea’s Jeju Airlines were the top five most punctual airlines last year. According to OAG, on-time performance is defined as flights that arrive or depart within 15 minutes of their scheduled times.
“Global on-time performance is reaching levels last seen before the pandemic as carriers work to ease operational pressures and delays. Confidence in the travel recovery is growing with airlines placing new aircraft orders, new routes being announced and labour challenges seemingly subsiding,” said John Grant, chief analyst at OAG.
In the Middle East and Africa region, Etihad ranked second, and Emirates ranked third after Safair in 2022. Other carriers that made it to the top 10 are Gulf Air, Qatar Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, Flynas, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Oman Air and Royal Jordanian.
