News / Airline reliability still 'mediocre' – but it's not always the carrier's fault

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Average airline reliability ‘marginally’ improved in August, according to the latest Cargo IQ data, but external factors dragged the performance down to the level of “mediocre”.  

Dave Dorner, CEO of Celebi Aviation, told The Loadstar on the sidelines of last week’s Aviation Connect event in Copenhagen, that on-time performance was “a critical issue”.   

“For the past 65 years, I would say that’s one of the most important criteria for how we perform. It’s the big part of what you contract for is ‘you’re going to do all these things and you’re going to do them on time’,” he said. 

Marie Seco-Köppen, executive director at CargoIQ, told The Loadstar at the event that for freight forwarders and shippers, airline delays could impact their bottom lines – “Delays are stocks that are not being refilled on time. 

“I recently talked with a shipper that told me, ‘we’re carrying these big machines and we need to have a specialist there so we need to know when they should be there, and if the freight is delayed we need to adjust that’,” she explained. 

“And there are also fines for what is not delivered as promised.”  

Mr Dorner noted that if the aircraft was late, ground handlers could help the airline to make up the time by speeding up their processes.

“That really is situation-dependent on which airline and what they want to do, but that’s often how we try to ensure on-time performance, whatever we can control in that ecosystem to improve performance.” 

According to Cargo IQ’s latest data, overall average percentage of on-time availability as per individual plan (NFD) – a measure of on-time freight and document availability at destination – was 80% among its member airlines in August. 

That was up from July’s 77%, but the NFD availability among the airlines ranged from a low of 62% to a high of 90%. 

Brandon Fried, director of the Air Forwarders’ Assocation, had told The Loadstar: “A good on-time availability percentage is typically anything exceeding 90%. A result in the 80s would be considered mediocre, while anything in the 70s or lower would be cause for concern.” 

Mr Dorner noted that there were “many, many things” that could result in delays.  

“There can be airport congestion, and if you start the day late, it’s a ripple effect. The real problem is things don’t go as planned. I would argue it’s a complex ecosystem, and it’s always convenient to point the finger at one part and say that’s the problem, but I think there’s many things going on that can impact a flight.”

Mr Fried agreed, adding: “And geopolitical events can also have a huge impact on air cargo routes and schedules.” 

According to him, recent lower-on time performance could be attributed to a mixture of congested airports, ground handling labour shortages, and outdated facilities “slowing cargo down”.