Data from OnTimeIndex
Holiday Flights Have Run Later Every Year Since 2023.
On-time arrivals in November and December fell from 85.4% in 2023 to 76.3% in 2025, and 89 of the 92 busiest holiday routes got worse.
In November and December 2023, 85.4% of U.S. airline flights arrived on time. In the same two months of 2024 it was 82.1%. In 2025 it was 76.3%.
Those figures come from the federal on-time data behind OnTimeIndex, Veraino’s flight-reliability site, which holds every reported domestic flight by the major U.S. airlines since June 2023. That covers three holiday seasons, and each was less punctual than the one before. The decline shows up on almost every busy route, at every airline and at every large airport.
89 of 92of the busiest holiday routes had a lower on-time rate in 2025 than in 2023.
19of those routes landed under 70% of flights on time in 2025. In 2023, none did.
10 of 10airlines in the data were less punctual in the 2025 holidays than in 2023.
What counts as on time
The Department of Transportation counts a flight as on time if it reaches the gate less than 15 minutes after its scheduled arrival. Airlines file this for every domestic flight they sell. Cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately and are not in the on-time rate, so the rate is the share of flights that actually arrived which did so on schedule.
The routes that ran latest
We took the 92 routes with at least 3,000 reported arrivals across the six holiday months, roughly 16 flights a day or more, and ranked them by their on-time rate over all three seasons. Routes are one-way: San Diego to San Francisco is a different line from San Francisco to San Diego.
| Route | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 3 seasons |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Diego → San Francisco | 81.0% | 62.4% | 68.5% | 70.3% |
| Las Vegas → San Francisco | 76.9% | 69.9% | 64.8% | 70.5% |
| San Francisco → San Diego | 84.3% | 69.6% | 62.7% | 71.8% |
| Las Vegas → San Diego | 83.6% | 70.5% | 62.1% | 72.3% |
| Los Angeles → San Francisco | 81.2% | 72.4% | 65.0% | 72.7% |
| Chicago O'Hare → Newark | 88.4% | 68.9% | 65.2% | 73.6% |
| Chicago O'Hare → New York LaGuardia | 85.1% | 79.8% | 58.5% | 73.9% |
| Seattle → San Francisco | 78.7% | 74.9% | 69.1% | 74.2% |
| Atlanta → Fort Lauderdale | 76.8% | 76.5% | 70.4% | 74.6% |
| Orlando → Newark | 82.5% | 70.4% | 70.2% | 74.7% |
Share of arriving flights less than 15 minutes late, November and December of each year, all airlines on the route combined. Source: DOT/BTS on-time filings.
Five of the ten run into or out of San Francisco, which had the lowest holiday on-time rate of any airport with 60,000 or more holiday arrivals: 75.7% across the three seasons. The steepest falls were in the Northeast and Chicago. Holiday arrivals at New York LaGuardia went from 87.2% on time in 2023 to 66.4% in 2025, Chicago O’Hare from 86.5% to 68.9%, and Washington National from 85.1% to 68.4%.
At the other end, the most reliable busy holiday routes were Hawaii’s inter-island hops. Lihue to Honolulu arrived on time 89.2% of the time over the three seasons, the best of the 92.
Every airline slipped
| Airline | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 90.5% | 84.4% | 77.7% |
| Southwest Airlines | 84.4% | 83.9% | 77.6% |
| Alaska Airlines | 83.5% | 80.5% | 77.5% |
| United Airlines | 87.2% | 81.4% | 77.1% |
| Hawaiian Airlines | 84.9% | 86.8% | 76.7% |
| American Airlines | 85.4% | 81.1% | 75.2% |
| Allegiant Air | 80.8% | 78.2% | 72.7% |
| Spirit Airlines | 75.8% | 81.7% | 72.5% |
| Frontier Airlines | 78.9% | 76.6% | 72.3% |
| JetBlue Airways | 74.6% | 76.5% | 69.4% |
November and December on-time arrival rate, by the airline that sold the ticket (including flights its regional partners operate). Sorted by 2025.
Delta was the most punctual airline in the 2025 holidays, at 77.7%, and also had the largest fall, from 90.5% in 2023. JetBlue was the least punctual in all three seasons. The gap between the best and worst airline in 2025 was about eight points. Delta, United and American each lost more than that between 2023 and 2025.
November 2025 had a known disruption. December did not.
During the federal government shutdown, the FAA ordered airlines to cut flights at 40 high-traffic airports from November 7, 2025, lifting the order later that month. It shows in the data: 2.6% of flights were cancelled in November 2025, against 0.14% in November 2023.
That does not explain the whole trend. The holiday on-time rate had already fallen in 2024, and December 2025, after the order was lifted, was the least punctual holiday month in the data at 73.1%. The on-time filings record when flights ran late, not why the pattern changed from year to year, so we do not claim a cause here.
For perspective, the holidays are still not the worst time to fly. July was less punctual than November or December in every year we have: 71.4% on time in July 2025.
What this data does not tell you
- Thanksgiving week itself. The figures are for whole months. The busiest travel days may run better or worse than the month around them.
- This year. Three seasons show a direction, not a forecast. Weather alone can swing a holiday month by several points.
- Cancellations in the on-time rate. A cancelled flight is not counted as late. It is its own figure, which OnTimeIndex shows next to the on-time rate for every route.
How we ran the numbers
Figures come from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ Marketing Carrier On-Time Performance filings for November and December of 2023, 2024 and 2025, as loaded into OnTimeIndex. Rates are summed flights, not averages of monthly percentages. The route ranking covers the 92 one-way routes with at least 3,000 reported arrivals across those six months. Each route in the table links to its OnTimeIndex page, which breaks the route’s most recent 12 months down by airline.