Starting this month, the federal Department of Transportation is adding a new wrinkle to the monthly airline on-time stats—or maybe it would be better to say it’s ironed out a wrinkle by including stats for ‘co-branded’ flights.
Previously, the stats only included flights operated directly by the major airlines, meaning that the multi-day meltdown of American Eagle flights a month or so ago was not reflected in the numbers for American Airlines.
Under the new plan, the five airlines that market co-branded flights actually flown by other, smaller carriers, will be listed in the Air Travel Consumer Report separately and as part of the total, as seen in the sample above.
The smaller airlines fly under such names as American Eagle, Delta Connection and United Express. Some of the smaller carriers are actually owned by the mainline airlines, including Endeavor, owned by Delta and Horizon, owned by Alaska, as well as American’s PSA, Envoy and Piedmont.
