US: Regional airlines out-do bigger rivals in on-time flights

Some regional carriers are doing better keeping their flights on time than industry behemoths such as American Airlines and Southwest, according to a first peek at new data compiled by federal regulators. A US DoT report released Tuesday is the first to include details on regional carriers, a huge part of the airline industry that was absent from the department’s performance surveys for several decades. This year, more than half of domestic flights were on regional airlines or “branded codeshare partners” as DOT terms them, carrying about one quarter of US air travellers. In July, four large regional airlines -- SkyWest, Endeavor Air, ExpressJet Holdings and Republic Airlines -- delivered a better on-time percentage than American, United Continental, Southwest and JetBlue. SkyWest ranked fourth across the industry, with 80.4% of its flights on time. Mesa Air Group also placed among the top five carriers in some months going back to the spring. With the new report, “the flying public will see a more complete picture of the performance of scheduled passenger service,” the department said<br/>