There is nothing more frustrating for airline passengers than delays and cancellations to their flights. A recent Travelperk analysis of plane departures between March 1, 2024, and September 30, 2024, named China and Canada as the countries with the highest cancellation rates – at around 5% and 3.4%, respectively.

Researchers looked at 10 countries – the USA, China, India, Spain, UK, Japan, Brazil, Italy, Germany and Canada. In the US there were over five million fights during the time period, of which roughly 140,000 were cancelled. This gave America a flight cancellation rate of 2.76% for 2024, the third highest among the countries surveyed.

In contrast, Spain and India had the lowest rates, at around 0.8% and 1.1% respectively.

Now a new survey carried out in February 2025 by Cirium’s On-Time Performance Report has highlighted the exceptional punctuality of several global airlines.

Overall, the global aviation industry saw a decrease in flight cancellations by 18% last month.

In a tremendous boost for Africa, FlySafair achieved an on-time performance (OTP) of 95.82%, highlighting its commitment to reliability.

The South African airline was the sole representative of the continent in these rankings.

The company recored just two cancellations for the month, despite operating in a challenging environment with shortages of air traffic controllers and navigation support at some airports.

The top European airlines in the OTP rankings were Iberia (91.25%) and British Airways (86.89%).

FlySafair is an international low-cost airline based in Johannesburg, flying to 14 destinations in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The company was established in August 2013 and its inaugural flight came on October 16, 2014.

Passengers on one of its flights last April had a lucky escape, after their plane lost its left main landing gear.

The FlySafair Boeing 737-800 was still able to land safely and there were no injuries among either the crew or passengers on board.