‍LONDON — According to data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company, Aeromexico (AM) led the global airline on-time performance (OTP) table for January 2026 with an 87.53% on-time arrival rate, ahead of Hainan Airlines (HU) at 86.84% and Singapore Airlines (SQ) at 84.14%. Saudia (SV) and LATAM (LA) rounded out Cirium’s global top five.

Cirium’s top-10 list also included United (UA), Iberia (IB), Etihad (EY), Korean Air (KE), and Delta (DL), underscoring how tightly clustered global reliability can look at the top end—even before you account for network complexity and winter disruption exposure.

On the airport side, Harbin Taiping (HRB) ranked as Cirium’s most on-time large airport in January (92.81% on-time departures), followed by Lima (LIM), Santiago (SCL), Salt Lake City (SLC), and Fukuoka (FUK). For medium airports, Panama City Tocumen (PTY) led the category (92.93%), while Taipei Songshan (TSA) topped the small-airport table (93.36%).

Regionally, Cirium’s leaders included Southwest (WN) in North America, ITA Airways (AZ) in Europe, Sky Airline (H2/H8) in Latin America, and FlySafair (FA) across the Middle East & Africa region.

Operationally, the report also flags how fragile schedule integrity can become when disruptions compound: North America recorded 34,161 cancellations in January, up from 19,176 in December, alongside a lower completion factor month over month (96.93% vs. 98.68%).

Cirium defines an on-time arrival as within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival time, and its program details also outline how airports are grouped by annual seat capacity (large/medium/small) and data coverage thresholds for airport ranking.

January’s leaderboard reinforces a simple reality: reliability is a competitive advantage when capacity is tight and disruptions are frequent. The airlines and airports that can protect completion factor while still holding mid-80s (or better) OTP are effectively monetizing operational discipline, turning what looks like a “soft” metric into a hard driver of customer preference, network confidence, and downstream cost control.