If you’re like me, one of the things you think about when booking a flight is: What are the chances this thing actually leaves on time?
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) recently released its latest on-time performance numbers for 30 major U.S. airports, covering January through June 2026, and there are some surprises. For these statistics, a flight is considered on time if it departs from the gate less than 15 minutes after its scheduled departure time.
Salt Lake City (SLC) came out on top while Fort Lauderdale (FLL) finished dead last. But what really caught my attention was how much some airports moved compared to the same period last year.
The 10 most punctual major U.S. airports
According to BTS, these airports had the highest percentage of on-time departures during the first six months of 2026:
- Salt Lake City (SLC): 83.73%
- Washington Dulles (IAD): 82.20%
- Seattle (SEA): 79.66%
- Minneapolis/St. Paul (MSP): 79.03%
- Newark (EWR): 79.02%
- Houston Intercontinental (IAH): 79.01%
- Los Angeles (LAX): 78.76%
- Atlanta (ATL): 77.44%
- Philadelphia (PHL): 77.08%
- New York JFK (JFK): 76.38%
Salt Lake City deserves some credit for consistency. SLC was also No. 1 during the first half of 2025, when 83.94% of departures were on time. Washington Dulles had a nice improvement, moving from No. 8 last year to No. 2 this year.
But the airport that surprised me most was Newark (EWR). Anyone who followed Newark’s problems in 2025 knows how rough things got. Yet EWR jumped from No. 20 last year to No. 5 this year, with 79.02% of flights departing on time.
Houston (IAH) also jumped from No. 23 to No. 6, Atlanta (ATL) went from No. 27 to No. 8 and Denver (DEN) climbed from No. 28 to No. 12. Those last two are especially impressive considering how busy Atlanta and Denver are.
LAX drops but is still in the top 10
Since LAX is my home airport and I fly through it all the time, I was obviously interested to see how it did. LAX ranked No. 2 during the first six months of 2025, when 82.82% of departures were on time. This year, it dropped to No. 7 with an on-time rate of 78.76%. That’s a noticeable decline, but No. 7 out of 30 major airports is still pretty good, especially considering how busy LAX is.
San Francisco (SFO), on the other hand, took a huge tumble. It went from No. 3 last year with an 81.94% on-time rate to No. 19 this year at just 73.42%.
The 10 major airports with the worst on-time records
Here are the airports at the bottom of the BTS rankings:
- Miami (MIA): 72.96%
- New York LaGuardia (LGA): 72.09%
- Orlando (MCO): 71.79%
- Chicago O’Hare (ORD): 71.03%
- Baltimore/Washington (BWI): 70.74%
- Nashville (BNA): 69.97%
- Washington National (DCA): 69.87%
- Chicago Midway (MDW): 69.30%
- Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW): 68.22%
- Fort Lauderdale (FLL): 66.39%
Fort Lauderdale’s number is pretty eye-opening. Just 66.39% of departures were on time, which means roughly one out of every three flights didn’t leave the gate within 15 minutes of its scheduled departure time.
It was also a big drop from last year. FLL ranked No. 21 during the first half of 2025 with a 75.80% on-time rate.
Dallas/Fort Worth didn’t fare much better at 68.22%. Interestingly, DFW was also at the bottom of the list last year, when it ranked No. 30.
O’Hare (ORD) dropped from No. 15 last year to No. 24 this year, with 71.03% of departures leaving on time. Anyone who flies through Chicago regularly knows how quickly thunderstorms, snow or high winds can mess up the schedule.
What travelers should take away from these rankings
I wouldn’t avoid an airport just because it’s near the bottom of this list. There are way too many variables, especially weather.
Florida airports deal with thunderstorms and hurricanes. Chicago gets everything from snowstorms to summer thunderstorms. San Francisco can have problems when fog and low visibility reduce the number of aircraft that can arrive and depart. Then you have air traffic control issues, runway construction, airline problems and delays that carry over from earlier flights.
Still, these numbers are good to know, especially if you have a choice between airports.
My longtime advice for avoiding delays is to book the first flight of the morning whenever possible. The plane is often already sitting at the airport and delays haven’t had a chance to pile up throughout the day.
I also always recommend downloading your airline’s app and checking where your inbound aircraft is coming from. I use the Flighty app because it shows the historical percentage of times my flight has been on time, delayed, canceled or diverted. Even better, Flighty lets me track where my aircraft has been, not just on the flight immediately before mine but up to two days earlier. That can give you an early heads-up that trouble may be brewing.
For example, if your plane is supposed to take you from LAX to New York but it’s still sitting in Chicago during a thunderstorm, that’s information you want to know as early as possible.
No airport can guarantee you’ll get out on time, but I’ll take every advantage I can get.
Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Airline On-Time Data. Rankings are based on marketing carrier performance from January 1 through June 30, 2026.
