# Historical Frequency of Flight Delays **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 19, 2013, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-frequency-of-flight-delays/676687 "2013-12-19T02:49:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![whc.03grady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a6a055/32.png) [@whc.03grady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whc.03grady)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-frequency-of-flight-delays/676687/1 "2013-12-19T02:49:42Z")
Has the trend since the advent of air travel been toward more or fewer delays, over total flights? Most anything I can find deals with specific airlines, airports, and aircraft, but I’m just interested in the general trend for US flights. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-frequency-of-flight-delays/676687/2 "2013-12-19T03:11:55Z")
**Airline On-Time Statistics** Data are available from January 1995 through **October 2013**. Times are reported in local time using a 24 hour clock. [ul] [li] [http://apps.bts.gov/xml/ontimesummarystatistics/src/index.xml[/li][/ul]](http://apps.bts.gov/xml/ontimesummarystatistics/src/index.xml%5B/li%5D%5B/ul%5D) ---
**Author:** ![whc.03grady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a6a055/32.png) [@whc.03grady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whc.03grady)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-frequency-of-flight-delays/676687/3 "2013-12-19T17:44:23Z")
Thanks, but I found that already and it’s basically unusable for the information I’m looking for. I was hoping someone knew of a study or source of more broad or summarized statistics.