Flight Delay Explorer

The US Department of Transportation states that "A flight is counted as 'on time' if it operated less than 15 minutes later than the scheduled time shown in the carriers' Computerized Reservations Systems (CRS). Arrival performance is based on arrival at the gate." In other words, if a flight is 15 or more minutes late to the gate, it's late. (Department of Transportation)

This data is from the US Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (www.bts.gov). They put out a lot of good stuff related to aviation; you can start here to see all the data they distribute. This project specifically is sourced from "Airline Service Quality Performance 234 (On-Time performance data)," which incidentally includes a lot more data than just on-time information.

January 2023 through June 2026.

For fun. The delay likelihood of a flight is unlikely to be correlated with whether the flight departs on the 11th of the month, but why not p-hack and find some unexpected correlations?

There's a lot that goes into this. Some factors:

• Time of day: an earlier departure is less likely to be late than a later departure, since a later departure is impacted by any earlier delays.
• Time of year: in the summer, one can face thunderstorms that develop throughout the day. In winter, snowstorms can cover an airport overnight.
• Airline: some airlines have better on-time rates than others (but who's on top will change month to month!).
• Mainline versus regional carrier: all else being equal, mainline carriers are going to delay or cancel their regional flights more than the mainline flights.
• Luck: maybe you're just unlucky.

Weighing all of that for one specific flight is what Flight Forecasts does.

Contact me at flightdelays@flightforecasts.com