In the first quarter of this year, one out of every six flights by Korean airlines departed or arrived more than 15 minutes later than scheduled. Compared with the same period last year, the delay rate fell by 8 percentage points.
According to the airline industry on the 26th, the combined delay rate for domestic and international routes operated by 11 Korean airlines from January to March this year was 17.7%. Of a total 175,555 flights, 31,155 departed or arrived more than 15 minutes past the planned operating schedule.
By route, 15,578 out of 88,304 domestic flights were delayed, for a delay rate of 17.6%. For international routes, 15,577 out of 87,251 flights were delayed, with a delay rate of 17.9%.
This year's first-quarter delay rate fell by 8 percentage points from the first quarter of last year (25.7%). The domestic delay rate dropped by 1 percentage point, and the international delay rate fell by 14.7 percentage points. Although the total number of operated flights increased by 8.5% from the first quarter of last year (161,840 flights), the number of delayed flights decreased.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) recently added long delays exceeding 1 hour for domestic routes and 2 hours for international routes to its on-time performance evaluation, and began notifying airlines of the quarterly on-time status midterm so they submit and implement improvement plans. In response, airlines optimized their scheduling strategies to reduce delays, collectively lowering the combined delay rates for domestic and international routes.
In particular, Air Premia, whose delay rate had reached 40.7% in the first quarter of last year due to slower supply of aircraft engine parts, reduced its first-quarter delay rate to 10.3% (134 out of 1,306 flights), a quarter of the previous level, by introducing new aircraft and engines.
This was the second-lowest international delay rate after Parata Air (8.9%, 69 out of 778 flights).
AIR SEOUL, whose combined domestic and international delay rate was 41.3% in the first quarter of last year, came in at 25.5%, down 15.8 percentage points. Aero K fell by 14.7 percentage points to 18%, and Asiana Airlines recorded 18.3%, down 10%.
In the first quarter, AIR BUSAN had the lowest combined delay rate at 11.6%, while Korean Air Lines (15.3%) and Eastar Jet Co. (17%) were also below the average.
Among delayed departures and arrivals during this period, 151 flights were late due to "aircraft maintenance," with a maintenance delay rate of 0.6%. That was down 0.21 percentage points from the first quarter of last year (0.81%, 1,314 flights).
For domestic routes (0.58%, 510 flights), the rate fell by 0.02 percentage points from a year earlier, and for international routes (0.62%, 541 flights), it declined by 0.41 percentage points.
By airline, Air Premia, whose maintenance delay rate reached 7.46% in the first quarter of last year, showed the biggest improvement this year at 1.91% (25 flights), a drop of 5.55 percentage points.
Next, T'way Air reduced its rate by 0.64 percentage points to 0.91% (192 out of 21,074 flights), and AIR BUSAN lowered it by 0.58 percentage points to 0.46% (70 out of 15,134 flights). Asiana Airlines came in at 0.45% (down 0.3 percentage points, 119 out of 26,170 flights), and Jeju Air saw a decline to 0.52% (down 0.21 percentage points, 132 out of 25,294 flights).
The airline with the lowest maintenance delay rate was Aero K at 0.36%, with 14 out of 3,921 flights delayed for this reason. Korean Air Lines (0.38%, 164 out of 42,774 flights) followed.