Apparently United States airlines did a much worse job getting their passengers to their destinations on time this October when compared to October of last year. The Department of Transportation said just this past Tuesday that the 19 carriers that were surveyed recorded an overall on time arrival rate of 77.3 percent in October. This is much lower than the 86 percent that was recorded in October of 2008 and even below the 86.2 percent that was recorded in September of this year.

Reports did show that Hawaiian Airlines had the best on-time performance in October with a 93.4 percent. This was followed by Alaska Airlines who had a 85.8 percent and then JetBlue Airways at 82.9 percent.

On the other end of the report, however, it would appear that Delta Air Lines subsidiary Northwest Airlines was ranked the worst in on time performance. Apparently, only 69.3 percent of all Northwest Airlines flights were on time. On top of this, Atlantic Southwest Airlines was only slightly better posting a 71.6 percent on time rating, followed by ExpressJet Airlines at 72.6 percent.

The Department of Transportation said that, in October, 41.1 percent of late flights were delayed by weather. This is up from the 34.5 percent that was seen a year ago. The government also said that the cancellation rate was higher this October than last October, and the agency received more complaints about airline services this year as well.

On the plus side of things, it did appear that airlines’ mishandled baggage rate did improve from what it was a year ago. This is big news since mishandled baggage was one of the most complained about things from passengers last year.