In a flip from the usual statistics issued by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, regional carriers outperformed the major airlines for on-time performance, according to FlightStats, an on-line provider of global flight status information, which released its June 2008 airline and airport on-time arrival reports for North American airports, the world's 50 busiest airports, US airlines and major European airlines.
The top regionals, Horizon and Mesaba both performed well above 80 percent for on-time arrivals, along with Hawaiian, Frontier,and Sun Country. Among the largest US airlines, USAirways is giving perennial on-time leader Southwest a serious run for its money. Each has lead the majors in on-time performance three of the last six months. In the US, on-time performance dropped sharply compared to May 2008 with many US carriers showing a 10 percentage point drop in on-time arrivals. American Airlines dropped below the 60 percent on-time percentage mark and United performed only slightly above 60 percent. Cancellations are also on the rise again after falling steadily earlier in the year.

North American Airports Report Summary
Getting planes to the gates on time proved very challenging at Chicago O'Hare, Newark, New York JFK, and New York LaGuardia. Passengers' chances of arriving on time at those airports in June was less than 60 percent. JFK's performance slid backwards to 58 percent on time performance after three months of steady improvement and breaking through the 70 percent on-time barrier in May.
Salt Lake City (82.38 percent), Memphis (80.92 percent), Phoenix (79.18 percent), Portland, Ore (77.9 percent), and Charlotte (77.31 percent) were the top performing North American airports in June. Vancouver was tops among Canadian airports at 76.14 percent.

Top 50 World Airports Performance Report Summary
The seasonal drop in US airline and airport performance kept all US airports except PHX (Phoenix, Ariz) out of the top 10. The US does dominate the cellar though with the three major New York airports along with O'Hare bringing up the bottom, all with on-time arrivals below 60 percent. Tokyo Haneda, Tokyo Narita, Bangkok, Singapore along with Paris Orly continue to set the standard with over 80 percent on-time arrivals.