Kenya Airways Ranked Among Africa's Most Punctual Airlines

National carrier Kenya Airways (KQ) has been ranked as Africa's second most efficient airline in a global on-time performance review of airlines and airports.

The latest On-Time Performance Review report released on Thursday, January 4 by aviation analytics company Cirium revealed that the airline attained an impressive 71.86% on-time arrival rate out of 41,905 completed flights in 2023.

KQ was only beaten to the top in Africa by Safair, an airline based at the O.R. Tambo International Airport in Kempton Park, South Africa which operates one of the world's largest fleets of civil Lockheed L-100 Hercules cargo aircraft.

"The high rankings result from Kenya Airways' persistent focus and delivery of on-time performance each month of the year, which has been a cornerstone of improving our guest experience strategy.

"This is a testament to our commitment to improving our on-time performance and our dedication to implementing real improvements on board." Allan Kilavuka, Kenya Airways Chief Executive Officer (CEO), commented.

Kenya Airways was ranked 10th in the Middle East & Africa region alongside Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways and Emirates based in Qatar and United Arab Emirates (UAE) respectively.

Notably, its African rivals; Ethiopian Airlines, Egypt Air, RwandAir, Royal Air Maroc and South African Airways did not make the top 10.

An on-time flight is defined as a flight that arrives within 15 minutes of the scheduled gate arrival. For an airport, it is defined as departing within 15 minutes of its scheduled departure.

According to Cirium CEO Jeremy Bowen, the data is collected from over 600 sources, allowing the industry stakeholders a third-party perspective on their operational performance.

"The program aims to provide the airline industry and its stakeholders with a neutral, third-party perspective on operational performance for individual airlines," Bowen remarked.

Cirium's On-Time Performance program monitors global airline operational performance using information from various sources, including airlines, airports, and civil aviation authorities, and offers a neutral, third-party perspective. The program studies over 30 million flights a year.

The coveted position of the most on-time Global airline went to Avianca Airlines, based in Bogota, Columbia which clocked an 85.73% on-time arrival rate out of 213,039 completed flights in 2023.

The winners in the other regions are Japan-based All Nippon Airways (ANA) for Asia Pacific, Oman Air for the Middle East and Africa, Copa in Latin America, and Iberia Express in Europe.

Safair was the leading low-cost carrier and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in the United States (US) was the world's top airport performer.