Things in the Sky

Generally, I really enjoy “The Middle Seat” column in The Wall Street Journal, as well as its accompanying blog The Middle Seat Terminal, but I was a bit disappointed with a post made on the blog yesterday about Delta’s on-time performance:

“…at Delta Air Lines, an operational slide seems to have started about the time that Delta’s acquisition of Northwest Airlines Corp. was announced.

According to a new Department of Transportation report out Wednesday, Delta was the worst major carrier in on-time performance in November. (The only two airlines of any size worse than Delta were its two regional partners, Comair and Atlantic Southeast.”

And it goes on to say:

On-time performance often reflects how employees feel about their airline and their managers, and how much attention executives are paying to both rallying workers and working towards a smooth operation. The latest DOT numbers suggest Northwest workers rallied with the merger news, but Delta workers perhaps weren’t as happy with the prospects of the combination. That, or Delta management was simply distracted by the task of creating the world’s largest airline company.

The blog entry is certainly correct in reporting that Delta’s on-time ranking has gone down in recent months. It ranked 17th in November, 16th in October, and 9th in September. For those same months, AirTran ranked 6th, 12th, 16th. By the same logic, the AirTran employees were angry about something, too – or perhaps both airlines have a hub in Atlanta.

Let’s take a look at the performance for Delta as a whole and at its main hubs: ATL, CVG, JFK, and SLC:

For its entire system, Delta’s performance dipped 7.0. But the on-time performance arriving Delta flights at Atlanta decreased 9.9 points, but increased at JFK by 4.4 points. Does this mean that Delta employees in Atlanta are the least happy with the merger, and employees at JFK are ecstatic about it? Probably not.

Fortunately, the report also has information about the causes of delays. 4.23% of Delta’s delays were attributed as “air carrier delays,” but 11.68% (the highest percentage of all airlines) were classified as “national aviation system delays.” The report provides “non-extreme weather conditions, airport operations, heavy traffic volume, [and]and air traffic control” as examples of these.

Obviously, airline employees play a huge role in the company’s on-time performance, but I think it is premature to measure the happiness of Delta employees about the merger through this metric.