Sequester furloughs hurt airline on-time rates for April

The furlough of air traffic controllers imposed by the federal sequester in April lasted only a week.

But statistics released Thursday show that the resulting delays hurt the on-time performance of the airline industry for the entire month.

The on-time rating for the nation’s airlines dropped to 77.3% in April, compared to 86.3% for April of 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The carriers also reported canceling 1.8% of their flights in April, up from 1.0% in the same month in 2012, according to the federal agency.

The on-time performance of the nation’s airlines dropped in April because the Federal Aviation Administration ordered air traffic controllers to take one day off of work for every two-week period to cut $636 million from its budget.

But after a week of flight delays, Congress passed legislation allowing the FAA to end the furloughs by transferring money from other accounts.

The airlines with the best on-time ratings in April were Hawaiian Airlines (93%), Alaska Airlines (86.8%) and Delta Air Lines (85.6%), the agency said.

The airline with the worst on-time rating was the regional carrier, American Eagle Airlines, with a rating of 66.9%.

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