Aeromexico claimed top spot as the most on-time global airline in 2025 for the second consecutive year, with European carriers SAS, Iberia and Turkish Airways also featuring in the top 10, according to aviation analytics company Cirium.
Cirium's 2025 On-Time Performance Review revealed that Aeromexico achieved an on-time performance (OTP) of 90 per cent last year, which ranked it ahead of Saudia Airlines (86.5 per cent) and SAS (86 per cent).
Also featuring in the top 10 global airlines were Iberia in sixth place with an OTP of 83.5 per cent and Turkish Airlines in ninth position with 81.4 per cent of flights on-time last year.
While SAS was the top European global on-time carrier, Iberia Express (88.9 percent) led the regional standings for the third consecutive year. Global and regional rankings differ because the qualifications used for the two categories are not identical, explained Cirium. Austrian Airlines (83.7 per cent) rounded out the top three for Europe for punctuality.
UK long-haul carrier Virgin Atlantic took the top spot in Cirium’s new category of Most Improved airline, improving its OTP by 9.4 percentage points year-on-year to achieve an on-time average of 83.45 per cent.
Delta Air Lines was the only US carrier to make the global list, coming in 10th at 80.9 per cent.
Airlines are measured as on time when a scheduled flight arrives within 15 minutes of its scheduled arrival time, according to Cirium.
In its summary of cancelled flights, Cirium reported that Asia-Pacific had the largest number of axed flights in 2025, at 560,899, although this was a reduction of 22 per cent year-on-year. North America was second with 286,952 cancellations, an 11 per cent increase from 2024, while Europe’s total cancellation figure dropped by 10 per cent year-on-year to 171,003 in 2025.
In the list of the best-performing large airports in the world for OTP, three Nordic airports made the top 10 – Oslo (86 per cent), Copenhagen (84.7 per cent) and Stockholm (83.6 per cent).
The winner of Cirium's Platinum Award for airport operational excellence was Istanbul Airport in Turkey, while Qatar Airways won the Platinum Award for global operational excellence for airlines.