SLC airport among nation's best for holiday travel
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More than 89% of flights out of Salt Lake City International Airport departed on time in December 2023, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick and Kavya Beheraj report from the latest Transportation Department data.
Why it matters: That's one of the highest percentages in the country for the last holiday rush.
By the numbers: Salt Lake City had the nation's fourth-highest rate of on-time departures and second-highest rate among airports serving more than 1 million passengers annually.
- Only Florida's Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport (89.5% on time) exceeded SLC for large airports.
Zoom out: Nationwide, 83.3% of domestic U.S. flights departed on time in December.
- That's a big upswing compared to December 2022, when Southwest Airlines' epic meltdown dragged the industrywide average down to about 70% for the month.
Between the lines: Several factors, from weather to a particular airline, can affect each airport's on-time performance.
- Denver International Airport's numbers tell that story — it posted an 81.1% on-time rate this past December, compared to 57.7% in December 2022.
- Denver is a major Southwest hub, and bad weather there helped spark the airline's infamous 2022 meltdown.
The big picture: SLC slipped to No. 23 of 105 airports for 2023, with 83.1% of flights leaving on time.
- In 2022, the airport ranked No. 5, with a rate of 83.5%.