What Were the Most On-Time Airlines of 2025?

Does the right airline — or airport — matter when you’re looking to travel to a given destination on time? Each year, the aviation analytics company Cirium assembles a list of the most on-time airlines and airports the world over — and this year’s report has plenty to mull over as you contemplate your next vacation or business trip.

The highest marks for an airline go to Aeromexico for the second straight year. Of its 188,859 flights, 90.02% arrived on time, with 99.74% of their flights completed. Saudia, SAS, Azul and Qatar Airways rounded out the top five, followed by Iberia, LATAM, Avianca, Turkish Airlines and Delta. It’s worth noting here that, of the airlines in the top 10, Delta had the most flights by a significant margin — over 1.8 million — of which 80.9% arrived on time.

Delta was also ranked atop Cirium’s rankings for North American airlines, followed by Alaska Airlines, Spirit, United and Southwest. American Airlines, which was ranked sixth for the category (76.43% on-time arrivals) had the largest number of flights tallied — over 2.25 million.

Cirium also singled out Virgin Atlantic for its most improved airline, noting that its on-time performance had improved from 74.01% to 83.45%. Another interesting piece of information from the report had to do with flight cancellations. Cirium noted that flight cancellations were down by 12% globally last year.

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As for airports, Cirium awarded Istanbul Airport a Platinum designation as “the world’s best-performing airport.” Of the large airports analyzed, three of the top five were located in the Americas: Santiago’s Arturo Merino Benitez International Airport placed first, followed by Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport, Mexico City’s Benito Juarez International Airport, Honolulu International Airport and Oslo Gardermoen Airport. All five airports featured on-time arrival and departures between 82% and 87%.

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…