Airport Reliability: On-Time Departures, Ranked
Which major US airports actually get flights out on time, on-time departure and cancellation rates from U.S. government data, ranked and updated monthly.
Everyone knows the airport they dread. Few can tell you how it actually performs. We aggregate the raw U.S. DOT on-time record by origin airport and rank the major US hubs on the number that governs a business trip: what share of flights leave on time. On-time departure rate sets your baseline; the airline you book moves it from there.
| Rank | Airport | On-time dep. | Cancelled |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Salt Lake City SLC | 81.7% | 0.48% |
| #2 | Newark EWR | 81.4% | 1.53% |
| #3 | Minneapolis MSP | 79.5% | 0.92% |
| #4 | Atlanta ATL | 79.4% | 1.38% |
| #5 | Detroit DTW | 79.2% | 1.43% |
| #6 | Boston BOS | 78.4% | 1.77% |
| #7 | Portland PDX | 78% | 0.61% |
| #8 | New York JFK | 77.6% | 2.02% |
| #9 | New York LGA | 76.4% | 4.16% |
| #10 | Los Angeles LAX | 75% | 0.61% |
| #11 | Miami MIA | 74.6% | 0.78% |
| #12 | Seattle SEA | 74.3% | 0.48% |
| #13 | Fort Lauderdale FLL | 74.1% | 1.14% |
| #14 | Philadelphia PHL | 74% | 2.73% |
| #15 | Chicago ORD | 73.1% | 3.19% |
| #16 | Washington DCA | 71.6% | 4.94% |
| #17 | Orlando MCO | 71% | 1% |
| #18 | Houston IAH | 70.8% | 0.75% |
| #19 | Charlotte CLT | 70.6% | 1.67% |
| #20 | Phoenix PHX | 69.5% | 0.43% |
| #21 | Denver DEN | 68.7% | 0.41% |
| #22 | Austin AUS | 66.6% | 0.98% |
| #23 | San Diego SAN | 66% | 1% |
| #24 | Baltimore BWI | 65.4% | 1.16% |
| #25 | Las Vegas LAS | 63.9% | 0.77% |
| #26 | San Francisco SFO | 63.8% | 0.7% |
| #27 | Dallas/Fort Worth DFW | 62% | 4.55% |
| #28 | Nashville BNA | 61.9% | 0.98% |
| #29 | Chicago MDW | 60.4% | 1.53% |
| #30 | Dallas DAL | 50.8% | 1.18% |
On-time departure = flights that push back within 15 minutes of schedule. June 2026, computed from the U.S. DOT BTS on-time dataset, aggregated by origin airport. Major US airports only (≥6,000 scheduled departures in the month).
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