Mediaboss Marketing

Last year was a tough year for United Airlines passengers flying in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport. And part of the blame for delays on the ground and in the skies is due to record numbers of people traveling.

The airline was ranked third worst in on-time performance in 2019 and held four records in December for the longest delays for domestic and international flights that sat on the tarmac at Newark for over three hours, according to U.S. Department of Transportation Statistics.

Travelers who fly Frontier and JetBlue experienced the lowest on-time performance in the nation. They were ranked first and second worst last year. Newark Airport is one of Uniteds hubs.

By comparison, Delta Airlines had the second best record with 83.5% of its flights arriving on-time last year. Delta flies from Newark and Philadelphia airports.

The top spot went to Hawaiian Airlines with an 87.6%. on-time record, according to the USDOT.

A flight is considered on time if it arrives or departs within 14 minutes, 59 seconds of its scheduled time, said a USDOT spokesman.

The record passenger traffic levels at the three metro area airports that Port Authority officials cited as a positive were cited by United officials for some of the delays. United also transported record numbers of passengers, said Charles Hobart, a United spokesman.

In 2019, we flew the most revenue passengers in our history more than 163 million customers, a 2.7% year-over-year increase, he said. We set a record for the most mainline departures more than 800,000 departures, an increase of 11,000 year-over-year.

Uniteds on-time performance also takes a hit from the weather.

United is disproportionately impacted by severe weather when compared to our competitors, based on the geographic location and size of our busiest hubs particularly Newark, Hobart said. We are seeing worsening weather...2019 was the worst year in our companys history in terms (of) weather/air traffic control delay rates.

The silver lining is that the airline was number one in on-time departures at four of our seven hubs, he said. The airline has launched new tools and initiatives to better assist and inform customers when disruptions occur, Hobart said.

In December, the USDOT found that United had some of the longest delays on the tarmac lasting more than three hours for one domestic flight and three international flights from Newark. A flight to San Diego was delayed four hours and 7 minutes on Dec. 18. A United flight to Milan topped that, waiting on the ground for five hours and 32 minutes on Dec. 18.

All of those flights were delayed due to air traffic control holds due to weather, Hobart said.

Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @commutinglarry. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters

See the rest here:
United airlines broke 4 records in Newark last year, and they werent good ones - NJ.com