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What day of the week has the most flight cancellations?

Travelers are twice as likely to have a flight canceled flying on Thursday as opposed to a Tuesday, according to the data. Tuesday was the clear winner with the least cancellations and the least flight delays, with Monday close behind.



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As the study showed, the day of the week can significantly impact flight disruptions. Travelers are twice as likely to have a flight canceled flying on Thursday as opposed to a Tuesday, according to the data.

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“Roughly, you've got a 30% less chance of getting a long delay or cancellation if you go out in the morning,” said Kathleen Bangs, a former commercial airline pilot and current spokesperson for the flight-tracking site FlightAware.

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Tuesday was the clear winner with the least cancellations and the least flight delays, with Monday close behind. According to the study, the best days of the week to fly are Tuesday and Monday, and the worst days of the week to fly are Thursday and Friday.

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According to data gathered by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the best time to fly is between 6 and 7 a.m. Flights with scheduled departures in that timeframe arrived just 8.6 minutes late, on average.

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Based on the most recent data available from 2022, these are the airlines with the worst track record for on-time flights.
  1. Allegiant Air. Coming in at the top (or rather, bottom) of the pack is Allegiant Air. ...
  2. JetBlue. ...
  3. Frontier Airlines. ...
  4. Spirit Airlines. ...
  5. Southwest Airlines.


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The system looks at crew resources, passengers connections, and airport resources and develops a plan for delays that ultimately leads to the most completed flights. Lock explained that the first thing they look for is optimizing crew, and that they try not to extend employee trips.

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For the third year in a row, Hawaiian Airlines scored the top spot as the most reliable U.S. carrier across these metrics. It had the lowest cancellation rate (fewer than 1% of its scheduled flights were canceled) and bumped just four passengers out of the nearly 10 million people it carried in 2022.

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Progressing through the morning, takeoffs—and therefore cancellations—start to spike. From 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. there were significant cancellations (19,854 during 6 a.m.; 18,071 during 7 a.m.; and 19,182 during 8 a.m.).

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Research produced by travel booking site Expedia revealed that later flights are often the most problematic. In fact, flights that depart after 3pm have the highest chance of being cancelled – a 50 per cent higher chance, on average, than those that depart earlier in the day.

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Republic Airways, a regional carrier that operates some services as American Eagle, Delta Connection, and United Express, canceled the most flights in the first half of the year at 10,270, or 6% of its schedule, according to the DoT data. In June alone, it canceled 8.8% of its operations.

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There are several reasons why flights may be canceled, including bad weather, air traffic restrictions, lack of airplane or staff, technical problems, and low passenger numbers.

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Contrary to popular belief, airlines don't cancel flights just to save money, for instance if there aren't enough passengers to make it worth their while. But they do cancel flights to prevent even wider cancellations and delays. Flights don't often exist in isolation, but are interconnected as part of a complex route.

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#1 Delta Airlines - The US' Most Reliable Airline If you're looking for the most reliable airline in 2022 and 2023 overall, that title is awarded to Delta Airlines, who had the highest on-time flight percentage - 83.52% (2022) and 80.18% (2023).

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The safest airline in America was Envoy Air (which is the largest regional carrier for American Airlines). The least safe: Southwest.

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Just like us after a night of good sleep, airline circulation is freshest in the morning. If your flight departs in the morning, you are less likely to be affected by delays that stack up during the day and push back or cancel departure times.

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In 2022, 2.7 percent of all U.S. domestic flights were canceled—the highest rates in the past decade, not counting 2020. Another 23 percent of all domestic flights were delayed, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

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Historically, June is the worst month for travel: It's a hugely popular time for travel, but that also brings problems. The biggest arrival delays of the year happen in June for 30 out of 50 largest airports in the U.S.

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