December was a crazy month for the US airline industry as extreme weather events and Southwest Airlines holiday meltdown left thousands of passengers stranded across the country. The full extent of the complex travel season was at grasp on Thursday after the Department of Transportation (DOT) released its December 2022 Air Travel Consumer Report, which reported that only 69% of all flights posted an on-time arrival rate during the month.

A massive blow to on-time performances

In December, US carriers operated 547,134 flights, an 81.33% recovery compared to pre-pandemic December 2019 levels (672,765 flights). The series of events that impacted the industry nationwide led to high numbers of canceled and delayed flights, according to the DOT report.

Passengers at a US Airport
Photo: Sorbis/Shutterstock.

Reporting carriers posted an on-time arrival rate of 69.0% in December 2022, down from 80.0% in November 2022 and down from 78.2% in December 2019, said the DOT on Thursday. Not a single US carrier had an on-time arrival rate of over 80%, with Delta Air Lines posting the best performance at 77.5%. American Airlines and United Airlines completed the top three with 73.7% and 71.8%, respectively.

On the other side of the spectrum Frontier Airlines, Allegiant Air, and Hawaiian Airlines had the lowest on-time arrival rates in December. Their rates were 56.6%, 57.2%, and 58.1%, respectively. Southwest did not rank among the airlines with the most delayed flights because its meltdown forced the carrier to cancel thousands of services rather than delay them.

Most of the delays in December were attributed directly to operational issues by each airline.

Canceled flights

The US carriers canceled 5.4% of their scheduled domestic flights in December 2022, according to the DOT. This percentage was higher than the 1.1% rate in November 2022 and December 2019.

Southwest Airlines accounted for 54.41% of all cancellations across the country. The airline canceled 14,042 flights from December 24 to December 31, the DOT reported. Throughout the month, Southwest canceled 14.6% of its scheduled flights. Alaska Airlines followed with 7.6% and Allegiant Air with 5.3%.

Travelers in long lines at Denver International -
Photo: Jim Lambert/Shutterstock.

On the other side, the airlines that canceled the fewest number of flights in December were American Airlines (1.8%), JetBlue Airways (1.9%), and Delta Air Lines (2.9%).

In 2022, of the 7.01 million flights scheduled, 2.71% were canceled, according to the DOT’s report. Four airlines had a percentage of 3% and over of operations canceled in the year, including Spirit Airlines (3.00%), Southwest Airlines (3.26%), Allegiant Air (3.52%), and JetBlue Airways (3.74%).

Mishandling objects and bumping

The DOT reported that 40.4 million bags were handled in December 2022, of which 1.09% was mishandled in the month. About 26.68% of the mishandling was attributed to Southwest. Additionally, about 1.62% of the 62,086 wheelchairs and scooters checked in December were mishandled.

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Finally, there was a bumping rate of 0.30 per 10,000 passengers in December, higher than the rate of 0.23 in the fourth quarter of 2021. For the calendar year 2022, the carriers posted a bumping/oversales rate of 0.32 per 10,000 passengers, higher than the pre-pandemic 2019 rate of 0.24, reported the DOT.

What do you think about December’s US air transport debacle? Were you impacted by it? Let us know in the comments below.