Reference · built on requestCommons signalAviation & marine

Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance

Flight-level US airline departures, arrivals, delay causes, cancellations and diversions, published monthly by BTS on TranStats.

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About

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics publishes the table On-Time: Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance (1987-present) on TranStats. It holds non-stop domestic flights by month, carrier and origin and destination airport, with scheduled and actual departure and arrival times, cancelled and diverted flights, taxi-out and taxi-in times, causes of delay and cancellation, air time and non-stop distance. Reporting carriers are US air carriers that account for at least half of one percent of domestic scheduled passenger revenues; before 2018 the threshold was one percent. BTS counts a flight on time when it arrives less than 15 minutes after its published arrival time.

An operator loads the monthly file for the airports you serve and proposes a benchmark note, a staffing change or a root-cause annotation for your approval.

This is a reference listing. It documents what Fibric would read from Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance and what it could propose, based on the publisher's published interfaces. Fibric builds it under a managed deployment when you request it; selecting it here installs nothing.

Inputs

  • One row per flight with FlightDate, Reporting_Airline, Tail_Number, Flight_Number_Reporting_Airline, Origin and Dest
  • Departure fields CRSDepTime, DepTime, DepDelay, DepDel15, TaxiOut and WheelsOff in local hhmm and minutes
  • Arrival fields WheelsOn, TaxiIn, CRSArrTime, ArrTime, ArrDelay and ArrDel15
  • Cancelled with CancellationCode, Diverted, CRSElapsedTime, ActualElapsedTime, AirTime and Distance
  • Delay causes in minutes from June 2003: CarrierDelay, WeatherDelay, NASDelay, SecurityDelay, LateAircraftDelay
  • Diversion detail from October 2008: DivAirportLandings, DivReachedDest and Div1Airport through Div5Airport with wheels-on and ground times
  • Prezipped monthly files at transtats.bts.gov/PREZIP named On_Time_Reporting_Carrier_On_Time_Performance_1987_present_<year>_<month>.zip

Proposed actions

Read-only. This feed informs operators; it changes nothing.

Proposed actions are target capabilities. Every action runs propose-first and needs a validated deployment and the appropriate permissions.

What you can build

  • Rank the airports you serve by late arrivals

    Load ArrDel15 and Cancelled for your Dest airports each month. The operator proposes a ranked benchmark note with the share of late and cancelled arrivals per airport and carrier.

    With Site Benchmark, Weekly Review

  • Explain a month of missed airport pickups

    Join late shuttle pickups to flights with ArrDelay above zero on the same date and Dest. The operator proposes an annotation that splits the delay into CarrierDelay, WeatherDelay, NASDelay and LateAircraftDelay minutes.

    With Root Cause

  • Staff an airport hotel around delay seasons

    Read DepDel15 and Cancelled by Month for your Origin airport across past years. The operator proposes cover levels for the coming season and shows the months it used.

    With Cover Forecast, Demand Outlook

Requirements

  • The Reporting_Airline codes and Origin or Dest airport codes you want to filter on
  • Storage and a monthly job for whole-month zip files, or a Filter Year and Filter Period selection on the download form
  • A parser that treats CRSDepTime, DepTime, CRSArrTime and ArrTime as local hhmm values, not timestamps
  • A rule for months before June 2003, where the five delay-cause fields are absent
Authentication
No key and no registration. The TranStats download form and the PREZIP directory are open downloads; the form itself needs JavaScript, the PREZIP files do not.

Limits

  • Monthly history, not a live feed. The release history showed June 2026 added on 12 August 2026
  • Only carriers above the revenue threshold report, and only non-stop domestic flights are included
  • Delay causes start in June 2003 and diversion and gate-return detail in October 2008
  • TranStats states no data license on the download page; this listing does not add one

Access and pricing

Reference listing. Public feed access is separate from Fibric integration. If you request this feed, your quote covers the build, usage, and support.

Request Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance ↗

Questions and answers

Do I need an API key?
No. The table is downloaded from the TranStats form, which lets you Filter Geography, Filter Year and Filter Period and choose Select all fields or Prezipped File, or straight from the PREZIP directory, which lists one zip per month back to October 1987.
Which flights and airlines are in the table?
Non-stop domestic flights operated by US air carriers that account for at least half of one percent of domestic scheduled passenger revenues. Before 2018 the threshold was one percent. A separate Marketing Carrier On-Time Performance table begins in January 2018.
How does BTS define on time and delay cause?
A flight is on time when it arrives less than 15 minutes after its published arrival time; ArrDel15 flags the others. From June 2003 each delayed flight carries CarrierDelay, WeatherDelay, NASDelay, SecurityDelay and LateAircraftDelay in minutes.
Ask about Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance

Ask about the capabilities and requirements in this listing.

For project-specific requirements, contact Fibric.

This Commons signal listing is developed, published, and supported by Fibric. It reads public data published by Bureau of Transportation Statistics (transtats.bts.gov). Upstream agencies and projects are the property of their respective owners, who are not affiliated with Fibric and do not sponsor or endorse this listing. Trademark policy