New York’s airports – already among the nation’s worst for flight delays – got even worse last year, new government figures show.
La Guardia ranked dead last for on-time performance among the nation’s 32 busiest airports, with just 58.48 percent of its flights showing up on time, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
Newark was second worst, at 59.45 percent; Kennedy was third worst, with 62.84 percent.
Those rankings of airport arrivals changed little from last year, when Newark was worst, La Guardia was second worst and Kennedy was fourth worst.
The poor local on-time performance continues a trend that’s been in place for several years. All three New York-area airports had on-time rates of about 80 percent in 2002.
Some specific flights are worse than others, the government stats shows.
Northwest Flight 552, an early-evening flight from Minneapolis to La Guardia, is late 93.33 percent of the time – the most delayed arriving flight in the area.
Continental Flight 1697, from Newark to Albuquerque, was the most delayed departure, showing up late at its destination 92 percent of the time.
Don’t expect the problems to get better any time soon.
Starting next month, the federal government will cap the number of arrivals and departures at Kennedy and let congested airports charge higher landing fees at busy times to encourage the stag gering flights.
But Port Authority offi cials says the proposed remedies don’t solve this major national problem.
Across the country, 26.6 percent of flights were late last year – only a little bit better than in 2000, when 27.4 percent of flights were late.
By airline, American Eagle had the most delays – 45.2 percent of its flights ran late, the stats show. United was the worst of the major carriers, with 45 percent of its flights running late.
Hawaii’s two airlines, Aloha and Hawaiian Air, had the best on-time performance last year – only 9.9 percent of Aloha’s flights were late, and 23.3 percent of Hawaiian’s flights were late.
In third place was US Airways, with 25.4 percent of flights running late.