PlainFlights

About PlainFlights

Our Mission

We believe flight performance data should be easy to access and understand. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics collects detailed on-time performance records for every domestic flight in the United States, but navigating the raw data requires technical expertise and familiarity with government data portals. That is why we built PlainFlights.

Our mission is to take this valuable public dataset and present it in a format designed for quick lookup and comparison. Whether you are a frequent traveler choosing between airlines, a journalist covering aviation trends, or a researcher studying transportation patterns, PlainFlights gives you the answers you need without wading through spreadsheets or learning SQL.

PlainFlights is free to use, requires no account, and presents only official government data. We do not sell tickets, recommend airlines, or promote routes. We present the data and let you draw your own conclusions.

Data Source

All data on PlainFlights comes from a single official source: the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) On-Time Performance reporting database, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation. This database tracks flight delays, cancellations, diversions, and their causes for all domestic flights operated by reporting carriers.

BTS collects this data under a federal mandate: airlines that account for at least 0.5% of domestic scheduled-service passenger revenue must report detailed on-time performance data monthly. This covers the vast majority of domestic air travel in the United States. The data includes scheduled and actual departure and arrival times, delay minutes by cause category, cancellation reasons, and diversion details.

The dataset is published as public domain information by the U.S. government. We download the raw monthly CSV files from the BTS Transtats portal and process them into our searchable database.

What We Track

  • Airports: On-time performance, delay causes, flight volume, monthly trends, and taxi times for U.S. airports. Each airport page shows historical performance and compares it to the national average.
  • Airlines: Carrier-level performance metrics including delay breakdown by cause, cancellation rates, on-time percentages, and historical trends over multiple years.
  • Routes: Point-to-point performance data for domestic routes based on actual flight records. Route pages show performance for specific airport pairs, not estimates or samples.
  • States: Aggregated flight statistics by state, including airport counts, total flight volume, and regional on-time performance trends.

How We Process Flight Performance Data

Our methodology preserves the integrity of the original BTS data while making it accessible. PlainFlights works with the Bureau of Transportation Statistics On-Time Performance dataset, which covers over 38 million domestic flight segments from 2020 through 2025. Every record includes scheduled and actual departure and arrival times, delay causes, cancellation reasons, and diversion data.

We load the full dataset and compute delay statistics, on-time percentages, and cancellation rates at the airport, airline, route, and state level, rolling up individual flight records into summary statistics. No data is fabricated, sampled, or estimated, every statistic on PlainFlights is derived from actual reported flights.

When BTS classifies a delay as weather, carrier, NAS (National Aviation System), security, or late-arriving aircraft, we preserve those categories exactly. Seasonal patterns and year-over-year trends use the same raw performance data. A flight is considered "on time" if it arrives less than 15 minutes after its scheduled arrival, per the BTS standard definition.

Delay Categories

The BTS classifies flight delays into five standardized categories:

  • Carrier Delay: Within the airline's control, maintenance issues, crew problems, aircraft cleaning, fueling, or baggage loading delays.
  • Weather Delay: Significant meteorological conditions that prevent safe flight operations or require rerouting.
  • NAS Delay: National Aviation System delays caused by air traffic control decisions, airport operations, heavy traffic volume, or airspace restrictions.
  • Security Delay: Terminal evacuations, re-boarding due to a security breach, long screening lines, or other security incidents.
  • Late Aircraft Delay: The previous flight using the same aircraft arrived late, causing a cascading delay for the next departure.

Data Currency and Update Schedule

Our database currently contains flight performance data from January 2020 through December 2025. BTS publishes new monthly on-time performance data approximately 2-3 months after the reporting month. For example, January 2025 data typically becomes available in March or April 2025.

We update our database periodically as BTS publishes new monthly reports. Because of the federal reporting cycle, the most recent month shown on PlainFlights will typically lag the current date by 2-3 months. We always display the date range covered so you know exactly which time period the data represents.

Editorial Independence

Content on PlainFlights is compiled by our editorial team from official source data. Raw data from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) is transformed into readable profiles by our continuous editorial pipeline, then validated against the source before publication. The PlainFlights editorial team, is responsible for editorial standards, methodology, and corrections.

We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from manufacturers, operators, or any transportation/product entity. Our only revenue source is contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense, advertisers do not influence which entities we cover or how we present data, and they do not receive preferential placement.

Limitations and Caveats

  • Domestic flights only - Only U.S. domestic flights are included. International flights to and from the United States are not covered in the BTS On-Time Performance dataset.
  • Reporting threshold - Not all airlines are required to report. Only carriers meeting the DOT reporting threshold (0.5% of domestic passenger revenue) are included, which means small regional carriers may be absent.
  • 15-minute standard - A flight is considered "delayed" only if it departs or arrives 15 or more minutes after the scheduled time. Shorter delays are not captured in the BTS statistics.
  • Reporting lag - Monthly data is published 2-3 months after the reporting period. The statistics on PlainFlights reflect historical performance, not real-time operations.
  • Carrier mergers - When airlines merge, historical data may be reported under different carrier codes. We present data as reported by BTS without retroactive reassignment.

Disclaimer

PlainFlights is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, or any airline. This site is for informational purposes only. We present publicly available government data and do not make recommendations about which airlines or airports to use. Flight performance varies by season, weather, and operational conditions, past performance does not guarantee future results.

Contact

Questions or feedback? Reach out at hello@plainflights.com. We read every message and appreciate data correction reports.