Royal Jordanian ranked second in terms of punctuality among Middle East and African (MEA) airlines with 80.67 per cent on-time performance rate last year, according to OAG's 2018 Punctuality League study, released earlier this year.

The Punctuality League report is based on 57 million flight records; it uses full-year data from 2017 to rank the world’s airlines and airports best on-time performance (OTP).

OTP characterises flights that arrive within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival/ departure times.

RJ’s president/CEO Stefan Pichler said: “Let me congratulate our operations team for this outstanding performance. Punctuality is a must for any world-class airline.”

The airlines and airports that qualified for inclusion in the Punctuality League have flight status data for at least 80 per cent of all scheduled flights operated by the airline or for the airport.

Five regional categories rank the best airlines, mainline and low cost carriers, which are operating in groupings of Iata-defined global regions: Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa (where RJ ranked second), Latin America and North America.

In each category, airlines must be ranked among the Top 250 operators globally in terms of available seat kilometers (ASKs) and must have operated a minimum of 18,000 scheduled flights in 2017 to qualify for inclusion.

OAG is a leading global provider of digital flight information. It provides accurate, timely and actionable information and applications across the travel sector to the world. Headquartered in the UK, OAG has global operations in the US, Singapore, Japan and China. - TradeArabia News Service