Airlines’ on-time rating falls below 80 percent

WASHINGTON — The Transportation Department says fewer flights arrived on time and more were canceled in March than a year ago.

On the other hand, fewer passengers are lodging formal complaints against the airlines.

The government said Wednesday that 79.8 percent of flights arrived within 14 minutes of schedule in March. That’s down from 82.2 percent in March 2012.

Hawaiian Airlines and Virgin America had the best on-time ratings, while regional carrier ExpressJet and JetBlue Airways had the worst.

The Transportation Department says it got 943 complaints about airline service from consumers, down 16 percent from March 2012. Over the first three months of the year, however, complaints were up 17 percent from a year earlier.