American Airlines received more than its fair share of negative publicity last week, after the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) labeled it America's tardiest airline.
Figures from the government agency show that the Dallas-based airline had the worst on-time performance rate among 12 American carriers in June, with just 72.4% of flights keeping to schedule. A flight is considered late by the BTS if it arrives or departs 15 minutes after the published time.
Virgin America was the next-worst performer with a 72.6% rating, while Spirit Airlines, Southwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways all failed to surpass 75%.
At the other end of the spectrum Hawaiian Airlines came first with 91.1%, followed by Alaska Airlines (86.4%) and regional operator SkyWest Airlines (84.6%). Delta Air Lines and United Airlines -- two of the country's three largest carriers, alongside American Airlines -- scored 83.4% and 79.2% respectively.
While the figures reflect badly on the Dallas-based carrier, a spokesperson pointed out that isolated weather incidents have had a distortive effect this summer.
"American Airlines operations were impacted by thunderstorms in June which caused flights to be delayed and arrive late," Victoria Lupica was quoted as saying by Philly.com. "For example, on Friday, 78 flights were diverted from Dallas-Fort Worth Airport because of a said summer thunderstorm."
The June statistics also pre-date a "major system-wide network outage" that affected Delta operations this month, resulting in thousands of flight cancellations and delays. That incident should easily send the Atlanta-based carrier to the bottom of the on-time performance ranking for August.
In order to smooth out these monthly fluctuations and present an accurate picture of airline punctuality, the BTS also publishes statistical averages for the past 12 months in its Air Travel Consumer Report.
This longer-term assessment ranks American Airlines a mediocre eighth out of 12 U.S. carriers, scoring it 81.2% for the 12 months to June 2016.
The top three U.S. carriers are Hawaiian (90.1%), Delta (87.2%) and Alaska Airlines (87.1%), followed by United (82.1%). The bottom three are Spirit (70.9%), JetBlue (76%) and Virgin America (78.2%). Allegiant Air, the ultra-low-cost carrier often berated for its punctuality, will begin reporting data next year.
