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Aviation glossary

On-time performance

Also: OTP, punctuality, on-time arrival rate

Airlines and business

Share of flights that depart or arrive within a set margin of their scheduled time, usually meaning less than 15 minutes late.

What it is

The most widely used benchmark counts a flight as on time if it arrives, or departs, less than 15 minutes after its scheduled time. The US Department of Transportation, for example, publishes monthly on-time figures for the country's largest airlines on that basis, and breaks down the causes of delay: the airline itself, weather, the air traffic control system, security, or the late arrival of the previous flight.

The times that matter are those at the gate, not take-off and landing, so taxiing and holding on the ground affect the result. Punctuality depends on many things: realistic turnaround times, reliable maintenance, efficient ground handling and uncongested airports and airspace.

Because timetables include a margin, lengthening scheduled flight times improves the statistics without making the journey any shorter, a practice known as schedule padding.

Related terms

Block timeThe total time of a flight, measured from when the aircraft leaves the departure gate until it stops at the arrival gate, including taxiing and any holding. Air traffic controlThe service that keeps aircraft safely apart and orders traffic on the ground and in the air through clearances and instructions passed by radio. Coordinated airportAirport where capacity falls short of demand, so landing or taking off there requires a slot allocated by an independent coordinator. Scheduled serviceFlight or series of flights operated to a published timetable, open for sale to the public and repeated systematically between two or more points.
Whole glossary

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This page was last updated on October 9, 2026

APA

Vuelopedia. (2026, October 9). On-time performance. Retrieved October 16, 2026, from https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/on-time-performance

MLA

“On-time performance.” Vuelopedia, Fundación Poderia, 9 Oct. 2026, vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/on-time-performance. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

Chicago

Vuelopedia. “On-time performance.” Fundación Poderia. Last modified October 9, 2026. https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/on-time-performance.

Harvard

Vuelopedia (2026) On-time performance. Available at: https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/on-time-performance (Accessed: 16 October 2026).

BibTeX

@misc{vuelopedia_en_glossary_on_time_performance,
  author       = {{Vuelopedia}},
  title        = {{On-time performance}},
  publisher    = {Fundación Poderia},
  year         = {2026},
  date         = {2026-10-09},
  url          = {https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/on-time-performance},
  howpublished = {\url{https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/on-time-performance}},
  urldate      = {2026-10-16},
  note         = {Accessed 2026-10-16}
}

Wikipedia

{{cite web |url=https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/on-time-performance |title=On-time performance |website=Vuelopedia |publisher=Fundación Poderia |date=2026-10-09 |access-date=2026-10-16 |language=en}}

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