There’s been a whole lot of talk around January’s operational performance. Heck, United even decided to put out a Super Bowl ad digging at Southwest about it in Denver. I decided to cuddle up with Anuvu’s operational data to pick it apart and see who really did well in January and who did not. It’s quite a mixed bag.
To start, I put a high-level chart together that’s full of confusing lines and colors for each marketing airline (meaning, regionals are included). Enjoy.
January 2023 Operational Performance by Marketing Airline
There is a lot going on here, so let’s start by noting some of the big picture stories.
- Frontier had a very bad January, finishing dead last in on-time performance by a lot, and pulling up at next to last in completion factor
- Delta did generally well, as it usually does, but it wasn’t even up to Delta’s usual standards
- American’s focus on D0 continues with it pushing a higher percent of planes on time than anyone else
- JetBlue canceled the lowest percentage of flights. Good on you, JetBlue
- Southwest canceled the highest percentage of flights, but its on-time performance was near the top (not D0, which Southwest always lags in, but A14)
- For an airline that created a Super Bowl ad, United is pretty middle of the pack
- It was clearly a rough month for everyone with nobody getting above 80 percent on time
That’s all well and good, but that’s the easy story. There are a whole lot of subplots going on this month, and that’s where I was hoping to focus to find some fascinating kernel of information.
Let’s start with the highest profile event of the month, the FAA’s NOTAM system failure which snarled traffic on January 11. Here’s how the airlines did on completion factor on the day of the event as well as one day prior and one after.
Completion Factor by Marketing Airline During FAA NOTAM Outage
Anyone else see an upside down widget here? Anyway, what really stands out most here is that Southwest and American canceled a whole lot more than anyone else that day. They both recovered very quickly, but that day was a rough one.
Even if a flight wasn’t canceled, forget flying on time on the 11th. This hit the East Coast hardest since it was really early in the morning on the West Coast, so Hawaiian’s 77.9 percent followed by Alaska’s 69.1 percent arrivals within 14 minutes sound ok. But then it falls off a cliff. Allegiant hit 55.9 percent with JetBlue right behind at 54.8 percent. Southwest was worst at 20.2 percent.
For the month overall, cancellation numbers really weren’t all that bad. When the worst is 97.2 percent (Southwest), you’re doing ok compared to some of the December horrors. So I decided to look deeper into arrivals within 14 minutes. I started by pulling the big four and putting them into a daily chart.
January 2023 Arrivals Within 14 Minutes by Marketing Airline
I stretched out the scale here to make it easier to see differences. On January 11, they all plunged below 50 percent as we just discussed above. The general arc of the month here shows a rough end to the holiday period followed by some nice calm. But then it just got choppy. Toward the end of the month, we see a mix of trouble at the various hubs that hit different airlines differently.
January 22 was awful for Delta. Why? Look at all that rain around Atlanta. There were thunderstorms all night long into the early morning.
And what about United on January 25? Houston is the problem child that stormy day with… more than 4 inches of rain?!
And that’s really what drove the performance here. Different hubs got hit harder at different times due to bad weather. There were no meltdowns, just responses to bad weather. Let’s take a look at that a little more.
Denver was in the news a lot, so let’s look there first.
January 2023 Denver Departing Flights — Arrivals Within 14 Minutes by Marketing Airline
All the hub airlines in Denver had a miserable month. You can argue that Southwest was worse than the rest during some of the events, but it was generally better than the rest during good times. There’s no clear winner here. Everybody was a loser in Denver.
Or how about a look at Chicago?
January 2023 Chicago O’Hare and Midway Departing Flights — Arrivals Within 14 Minutes by Marketing Airline
Southwest certainly started off worse but then it jumped ahead. American definitely had a bigger down than others later in the month. Something clearly went a little more wrong there. Looking at the regional carriers vs mainline, I don’t see any notable differences, so it was some systemic issue.
Dallas shows a similar story. Southwest had a good run above American in the early part of the month but then American caught up. And who can guess when the ice storm was? Yup, that’s an easy one.
January 2023 Dallas Fort Worth and Love Field Departing Flights — Arrivals Within 14 Minutes by Marketing Airline
In the end, it was just a bad month all around. Some airlines were less bad than others, but nobody ran a particularly good operation. It looks like nearly everything was just the result of poor weather. Such is life.