Last checked against DOT and BTS data: September 28, 2026.
Short answer: Alaska Airlines was the most on-time US airline in July 2026. 74.8% of its flights arrived on time. United (72.2%) and Delta (71.7%) came next. JetBlue finished last at 55.7%, and it also cancelled 9.8% of its scheduled flights, almost three times the next-worst rate. Across all airlines, 69.5% of flights arrived on time and 2.8% were cancelled. These figures come from the Department of Transportation’s September 2026 Air Travel Consumer Report, which covers July.
July 2026 on-time and cancellation rates by airline
| On-time rank | Airline | Arrived on time | Cancelled | Flights scheduled |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alaska Airlines (incl. Hawaiian) | 74.8% | 1.1% | 47,436 |
| 2 | United Airlines | 72.2% | 2.7% | 136,232 |
| 3 | Delta Air Lines | 71.7% | 3.3% | 149,051 |
| 4 | Allegiant Air | 68.6% | 0.5% | 13,314 |
| 5 | Southwest Airlines | 68.0% | 1.1% | 124,994 |
| 6 | American Airlines | 68.0% | 3.2% | 182,933 |
| 7 | Frontier Airlines | 62.5% | 3.4% | 20,482 |
| 8 | JetBlue Airways | 55.7% | 9.8% | 23,312 |
| All airlines | 69.5% | 2.8% | 697,754 |
Southwest and American both show 68.0%. The DOT ranks airlines on unrounded figures, and Southwest comes out ahead. Allegiant was in the middle of the pack for punctuality but had the lowest cancellation rate by a wide margin: 73 cancelled flights out of 13,314.
Three things the ranking doesn’t show at first glance
Alaska’s number now includes Hawaiian. The FAA gave Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines a single operating certificate on October 29, 2025, and Hawaiian-branded flights are now operated by Alaska. So the top spot reflects the combined airline, not Alaska alone.
JetBlue’s month was mainly about cancellations. It cancelled 2,279 of 23,312 scheduled flights. Frontier had the next-highest rate at 3.4%. The DOT report gives the numbers, not the reasons.
The big three do better or worse depending on who actually flies the plane. The DOT splits each network into the airline’s own flights and flights run by regional partners under its brand. American’s own flights arrived on time 65.0% of the time, while its branded regional flights managed 70.8%. At United it was 71.5% against 73.0%. Delta (71.9% against 71.3%) and Alaska (75.9% against 72.4%) went the other way, with their own flights doing better.
Why flights ran late
Airlines report the cause of each delay, and a single late flight can be split across more than one cause. Here is the July 2026 total, measured against all scheduled flights (DOT Table 7):
| Cause | What it means | Share of flights |
|---|---|---|
| Late-arriving aircraft | The plane arrived late from its previous flight | 10.92% |
| Air carrier | Within the airline’s control: crew, maintenance, cleaning, fueling, baggage | 8.22% |
| National Aviation System | Air traffic control, airport operations, heavy traffic, non-extreme weather | 6.90% |
| Extreme weather | Weather severe enough to delay or cancel the flight | 1.12% |
| Security | Terminal evacuations, re-screening, long security lines | 0.05% |
The largest category, late-arriving aircraft, describes how delays spread rather than where they start. A morning problem with one plane pushes back every later flight that plane was scheduled to fly that day.
July is almost always the worst month
BTS ranks every month since January 2018 by on-time arrivals. July 2026 (69.49%) ranks 99th of 103. Four of the six worst months in that period are Julys:
| Month | Arrived on time | Cancelled | Rank (of 103) |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 2023 | 69.64% | 2.48% | 98 |
| July 2026 | 69.49% | 2.79% | 99 |
| July 2025 | 69.23% | 2.58% | 100 |
| December 2022 | 69.02% | 5.39% | 101 |
| July 2024 | 68.42% | 2.89% | 102 |
| April 2020 | 55.73% | 41.31% | 103 |
Summer schedules are the fullest of the year, and afternoon thunderstorms regularly slow traffic at big hubs. July 2026 was slightly better than July 2025 and July 2024. It was well below June 2026 (73.12%), and far below the best month of 2026 so far, April (79.18%).
Best and worst major airports
BTS also ranks the 30 largest US airports by on-time arrivals. For July 2026:
| Airport | July 2026 | July 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best | Salt Lake City (SLC) | 81.21% | 80.33% |
| 2nd | Houston Intercontinental (IAH) | 78.13% | 73.02% |
| 3rd | Minneapolis–St. Paul (MSP) | 76.11% | 76.54% |
| 27th | New York JFK | 59.12% | 62.51% |
| 28th | New York LaGuardia (LGA) | 58.93% | 61.67% |
| 29th | Washington Reagan National (DCA) | 58.04% | 58.68% |
| Worst | San Francisco (SFO) | 51.59% | 70.10% |
San Francisco fell further than any other major airport, from 70.10% to 51.59%. That means nearly half of arriving flights were late. In late March 2026 the FAA stopped side-by-side landings on SFO’s parallel runways, and runway construction is expected to run into October. Both limit how many planes can land each hour.
How “on time” is measured
- A flight counts as on time if it arrives less than 15 minutes after its scheduled time. A flight 14 minutes late is on time; one 15 minutes late is not.
- Airlines have to report once they carry at least 0.5% of US domestic scheduled passenger revenue. In the table above, each figure also includes the regional partners that fly under that airline’s name.
- Only domestic flights are counted. Cancelled and diverted flights count as not on time.
How to look up a specific flight or route
The monthly report only gives totals. Behind it is a public record of every domestic flight the reporting airlines operate, about 600,000 a month. For each flight it lists scheduled and actual times, delay minutes, the cause of any delay, taxi times, and whether the flight was cancelled or diverted. Here is one real row, as our tools return it:
| Flight | Delta 1343, Milwaukee (MKE) to Detroit (DTW) |
| Date | June 16, 2026 |
| Departure | Scheduled 16:49, left 16:51 (2 min late) |
| Arrival | Scheduled 19:01, arrived 19:04 (3 min late, so on time) |
| Taxi out / air time / taxi in | 16 / 42 / 15 minutes |
| Aircraft | N997AT, 237 miles |
There are two ways to get these rows:
- Free, from BTS: the Bureau of Transportation Statistics publishes the full monthly files and summary tables on its airline on-time pages. If you want a whole month once, this is the cheapest way.
- As clean rows through an API: NexGen Signal’s US Airline On-Time Flight Records returns the same BTS records as JSON, CSV or Excel, with one row per flight and consistent field names. You choose a year and month and set a record limit. It costs $0.05 per record on Apify’s free plan and less on paid plans, so it suits samples, tests and small regular pulls into a spreadsheet or database. It isn’t meant for bulk-downloading entire months.
Two related NexGen Signal datasets go further. US Airline Traffic by Carrier shows how full the planes were: passengers, seats and load factor per airline per month, from DOT’s T-100 data. US Airport-Pair Fares gives average fares and traffic by route from DOT’s fare sample. More official-statistics datasets are on our NexGen Signal page.
Sources
- DOT: September 2026 Air Travel Consumer Report (July 2026 data), Tables 1, 6 and 7
- BTS: Ranking of Marketing Carrier On-Time Performance by Month since 2018
- BTS: Monthly On-Time Arrival Rankings for Major Airports, July 2026
- BTS: Airline Service Quality Performance Data, July 2026 (September 21, 2026)
- The Points Guy: SFO summer delays and runway work (July 16, 2026)
Figures are copied from the DOT and BTS tables listed above as published on September 28, 2026. The DOT sometimes revises a report after release; this one is marked “revised 9-22-2026”.
We cover AI agents, automation, and the tools that make them work. Our mission is to make AI accessible to everyone.