The most recent Air Travel Consumer Report has found that May 2017 faced 27 separate tarmac delays in excess of three hours for domestic flights, but no delay in excess of four hours for international flights.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) consumer report found that the vast majority of these domestic delays transpired at Philadelphia on May 25. In total, 24 flights were delayed that day due to heavy thunderstorms in the area–a fact still under investigation.
The month consequently offered a 79.1 percent on-time arrival rate–a nearly 4 percent decrease from the same time last year. Domestic flight cancellation rates were also up, though going month to month, May was an improvement over April 2017. More concerningly, the report found that 12 flights were chronically delayed for three consecutive months, and 48 flights for two consecutive months. Chronic delays are, in this case, when flights are more than 30 minutes late more than 50 percent of the time.
While the causes of delays are many and various, the highest number were simply due to late-arriving aircraft, with aviation system delays being a not so distant second. Security was rarely (just 0.02 percent of the time) a factoring concern. However, complaints about airline service rose more than 50 percent over the course of the year, even if the number of complaints in May fell from the nearly 2,000 received in April 2017.
Complaints over the treatment of disabled passengers were also on the rise–both for the year, and month-to-month. Discrimination claims have also risen over the course of the year, though they fell slightly from April to May.