US’ Spirit Airlines makes jump in on-time rankings

Bloomberg

The airline that passengers love to hate is figuring out how to arrive on time.
Spirit Airlines Inc. rose to third place in the Department of Transportation’s monthly tally of US airlines’ on-time performance in October, with 87.2 percent of its flights arriving within 14 minutes of their scheduled time. That placed it ahead of larger Alaska Air Group Inc., which was No 4. Since punctuality has been a major part of Alaska’s customer appeal, can warmer feelings be far off for Spirit?
Overall, the airline industry posted an 84.8 percent on-time rate in October, and 79.7 percent for the past year.
Spirit CEO Bob Fornaro has made schedule reliability a cornerstone of his efforts to revamp operations at the discount carrier, seeing it as a pathway to better service, fewer complaints and more repeat customers. Under Fornaro, who took over in early 2016, Spirit has also deployed a new website, fresh software tools to rebook passengers and a more active social media strategy to engage with customers. While Spirit is making headway, it still hasn’t emerged from the passenger doghouse.
Florida-based Spirit remains tenth in on-time performance over the prior 12 months, with 76.1 percent of its flights on time. Hawaiian Holdings Inc and Delta Air Lines Inc are first and second, respectively, when it comes to on-time performance over the past 12 months.