In this article, air travel demand continued to surge in 2024, driven by a rebound in international trips. From January to October alone, revenue-passenger miles worldwide, a key demand indicator, increased by almost 11% compared to the previous year, as reported by the International Air Transport Association. For 2025, IATA predicts a total of 40 million aircraft departures, representing a 4.6% rise from 2024.
Airlines were in a rush to add more flights and expand premium seating, which generates higher revenue, particularly on long-haul journeys. While some carriers faced challenges such as shortages of new aircraft and financial difficulties, many passengers did not experience the same level of flight disruptions as seen during the acute staffing shortages that followed the pandemic.
According to a recent ranking by Cirium, the most punctual airlines were spread across the globe. Cirium, an aviation data firm, defines punctuality as an arrival within 15 minutes of the scheduled time. Despite its struggles to recover from the CrowdStrike outage in July, which led to the cancellation of thousands of flights, Delta Air Lines secured the top position among U.S. and Canadian airlines in the rankings.
(Global carriers are defined as those serving at least three regions; On-time rate in parentheses)
