New Delhi: Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) has been ranked among the top 20 most punctual airports with maximum footfall for the month of August. The survey was conducted by OAG, a UK-based consulting company that provides insights into flight data, and boasts to have the world’s largest network of air travel data. With the highest on-time performance of 82.9 per cent in 2018-19, the airport also broke its earlier record of 60 million passengers and catered to over 63.5 million passengers in the financial year. The airport could soon cross the 70 million mark, says the report.
OAG’s definition of on-time performance (OTP) is flights that arrive or depart under 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival/departure times. Delhi, however, lagged behind when it came to airports with a limited number of flights. In that category, it was featured on 348th position in terms of on-time performance. Delhi was ranked on the top in terms of maximum departures of 630 per day, with around 83 per cent OTP.
To qualify for inclusion in the punctuality league, the OAG schedules database must have flight status data for at least 80 per cent of all scheduled flights operated by an airline or for an airport. Amongst the world’s largest airlines, two Japanese carriers top this table. Japan Airlines achieves first place with 85.27 per cent of flights on time and All Nippon Airlines is not far behind in second place with 83.81 per cent on time.
In the world’s largest airlines category, the US majors occupy the top 10 spots with Delta Air Lines taking third place, United Airlines 7th and American Airlines 9th place, with all three achieving OTP of 78 per cent or over.
OAG had named the air route between Mumbai and Delhi was the third busiest in the world. A total of 47,462 flights operated between the two airports, which is around 130 flights every day. There are only two other routes busier than Mumbai-Delhi. A total of 64,991 flights operated between South Korea’s Jeju and Seoul Gimpo airports, while a total of 54,519 flights operated between Australia’s Melbourne and Sydney airports.
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