How to Avoid Flight Delays

Whether you’re flying for business, to see family and friends, or on vacation to a destination you’ve always dreamed about, a flight delay can get your trip off to a bad start. Heck, it can outright ruin it. While you may feel helpless in these situations, there are ways you can help mitigate delays from happening in the first place.

If you’re wondering how to avoid flight delays when you travel, here are four things you can try.

» Learn more: The best airline credit cards right now

One way to avoid flight delays is to book flights on airlines that have a history of on-time departures. OAG tracks on-time performance for airlines every month and publishes an annual Punctuality League report that can help you book flights on airlines that are less likely to be delayed.

Below are the top 10 most punctual airlines in the U.S. according to OAG’s Punctuality League 2022 report:

Things look a little different when leaving the country. If you’re flying internationally, consider booking flights on the following airlines that rank high on punctuality according to OAG:

• Copa Airlines.

• Garuda Indonesia.

• LATAM.

• Skymark.

Researching an airline’s recent history of on-time performance and booking flights based on what you find, can help you avoid delays.

» Learn more: How to get paid for airline flight delays

Another helpful way to avoid flight delays when you travel is to use FlightAware to see a history of when a particular flight has historically departed and landed. FlightAware is free to use and includes up to three months of flight history, although you also have the option of purchasing a subscription to see how a flight has performed over the prior five or eight months.

Here’s an example of how you can use FlightAware effectively to try to avoid a flight delay: Let’s say you wanted to book a flight from Amsterdam to Zurich and were considering booking Swiss Air Lines flight 725, which is scheduled to depart Amsterdam at 9:50 a.m. and land at 11:15 a.m. By using FlightAware to see the flight’s recent departure and arrival times, you can see that this might not be the best flight to book if you’re trying to avoid a delay as the flight often departed and arrived later than scheduled.

For this particular Swiss Air Lines flight, in the 12-day period listed there was only one flight that departed 20 minutes or less before the scheduled departure time, with two flights delayed more than one hour and one flight canceled.

A better option would be KLM flight 1957, which is scheduled to take off at 9:40 a.m. from Amsterdam and land in Zurich at 11:05 a.m. and has a recent history of leaving close to its scheduled departure time, according to FlightAware.

In the same 12-day period, KLM had seven flights depart 20 minutes or less from the scheduled departure time, making it the safer option if you want to avoid flight delays.

As you can see in the examples above, FlightAware can be an effective tool to help you book flights that depart on time.

» Learn more: 6 common airline credit card mistakes worse than flight delays

Another way to avoid flight delays is by booking nonstop flights whenever possible. The logic here is simple: having one flight booked means you only risk having one flight delayed, but if you book an itinerary with two flights to get to the same destination, either your first or second flight could be delayed.

Because of this, if your goal is to avoid flight delays you should look for the best nonstop flight options.

If you can’t avoid a layover, you still help avoid flight delays by booking your connection through an airport that has a history of punctuality. Here’s a list of the most punctual U.S. airports from the OAG’s Punctuality League 2022 report:

Booking a flight with a layover in an airport that has a history of on-time performance is a great way to avoid flight delays.

» Learn more: A credit card can rescue your trip from stormy weather

While you can never guarantee that your flight will depart exactly when planned, there are steps you can take to help avoid flight delays including booking nonstop flights, booking flights on airlines (or through airports) that have a history of on-time departures and using FlightAware to see a specific flight’s recent history of on-time and delayed departures.