American Airlines and Delta Air Lines are obviously not the best of friends, but on Thursday a top American executive congratulated Delta for its operational excellence.
“Delta’s done a great job: hats off to them,” Robert Isom, American Chief Operating Officer, said Thursday during a Credit Suisse investor presentation, as he displayed slides showing American’s improving operational performance – including more completions, on-time departures and arrivals and fewer mishandled bags.
All three global U.S. carriers – American, Delta and United – have been working to boost operational performance, one of a series of key improvements that are benefiting passengers as the carriers enjoy an era of unprecedented profitability.
Isom said Delta “is operating at a level that’s never been seen before, especially for an airline that large.
“Right now, we’re not too far from Delta in terms of departing aircraft on time,” he continued. “Where Delta is distinguishing themselves right now, I think, is with their completion factor.”
Delta CEO Richard Anderson has made it a priority to complete all flights. In the third quarter, Delta completed 99.9% of its flights and even had 40 days with zero cancellations. “In September alone we cancelled only 13 flights out of more than 83,000 flights and our competitors can’t match it,” Anderson said on the carrier’s third quarter earnings call. During Thanksgiving week, Delta cancelled just five mainline flights.
American is not doing badly, however. Isom’s graphs showed that during the third quarter, the carrier completed 99.3% of its flights, up from 96.4% in the first quarter. On time arrivals increased to 81.9% from 75.9%. On time departures increased to 66.4 from 61.3, while the number of mishandled bags was 3.80 per 1,000 bags in July and August, down from 4.64 in the first quarter.
Forbes