Flying Smarter in 2019: Airline Reliability Index

Research undertaken by Get Going, a travel insurance brand out of the UK, reveals the best and worst airlines when it comes to being reliable. With the recent spate of airlines canceling huge numbers of flights or collapsing entirely, Get Going travel insurance looked into which airlines are currently the most reliable and therefore your best bet for flying in 2019.

Five key factors were taken into account from the month of November 2018, including; percentage of flights delayed, average delay waiting time, the percentage of flights cancelled, safety ranking and customer rating.

The World’s Most Reliable Airlines

• Japan Airlines, who have 126 domestic and 54 international routes, came out overall on top, with just 10.54% of flights being delayed and only 1.05% of flights cancelled across November.

• Dutch-based KLM Cityhopper is actually the airline with the least amount of delayed flights, with only 9.6% of flights being delayed compared to Japan Airlines’ 10.54%. However, KLM Cityhopper had a slightly higher number of cancellations, with 1.13% of flights being cancelled and an average wait time of 33 minutes.

• IndiGo is the most popular low-budget airline in India and they take third place in the top ten, with 14.7% of flights being delayed and an impressive 0.07% of flights being cancelled.

• Renowned airlines, Emirates and Qatar Airways also made the top ten, in positions six and seventh place respectively. Nearly 85% of Emirates’ flights arrived without delay, scoring a perfect ten out of ten for safety. Rivals, Qatar Airways remained slightly behind with nearly 84% of their flights running on time.

Down in the Rankings

At the other end of the results, Frontier Airlines came out as the least reliable from the 50 global airlines studied with 30.64% of flights delayed and an average delay time of 65 minutes.

• American Airlines takes second place for the least reliable airline, with 18.07% of flights being delayed and passengers waiting around 61 minutes on average.

• Spanish-based airline Vueling are known for their affordable prices, but with 23.74% of flights being delayed and the average waiting time 55 minutes – it is the third least reliable airline of 2019.

• Australia-owned Jetstar delayed nearly 28% of its flights and cancelled 2.13% of them. Air Canada also featured in the bottom ten, with 25.57% of its flights being delayed and passengers having to wait up to 46 minutes.

For travelers who want to gage the chances of a flight delay or cancellation minutes, days and even months before their scheduled flight, a proprietary flight delay map with a useful app is available here.