More flights on time, but fewer planes flying

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Eight of every 10 flights arrived on time during the first four months of 2002, the highest percentage in at least eight years, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics said Monday.

Statistics show that 80 percent of commercial flights arrived within 15 minutes of their scheduled time. That’s the highest percentage since the current record-keeping system began in 1995, when 76 percent of flights arrived on time. Between January and April 2001, 72 percent of flights arrived on time.

So many flights were on schedule because air traffic has not returned to normal following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said Darryl Jenkins, director of the aviation institute at George Washington University. There were 1.7 million takeoffs and landings during the first four months of 2002 compared with 2.1 million takeoffs and landings during the same period a year ago, statistics show.

"That’s the only thing that has changed," Jenkins said. "The system is still antiquated. If we live in a no-growth environment for the next 10 years, we will continue this. If people start flying again, it will be just as bad as it used to be."

Federal Aviation Administration officials say the number of flights is returning to pre-Sept. 11 levels. The FAA has added new air routes and more frequent weather updates to try to make the planes fly on time.

While the FAA’s annual March forecast projected that air travel wouldn’t return to pre-Sept. 11 levels until 2003, agency officials said they expected more passengers to fly this summer than before the terrorist attacks.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported that flights to Philadelphia and Seattle were late 23 percent of the time.

A year ago, 34 percent of flights to Seattle arrived late.