South Africa’s Safair has been ranked the top on-time airline for the Middle East and Africa by aviation analytics firm OAG in the just released Punctuality League 2023 report with a score of 95.30% an improvement from 94.40% in 2019. Remarkably the airline operated 47% more flights in 2022 than in 2019 according to the survey.

The low-cost carrier beat other global airlines to emerge second globally according to the survey where Indonesia’s Garuda Indonesia was ranked first with a score of 95.63% although data indicates the airline only operated 25% of the flights they had in 2019.

Safair was also the only African airline in the top 20 while Etihad and Emirates at position 19 and 20 respectively represented the Middle East.

The OAG report also indicates that the average OTP across this group of carriers based in the Middle East and Africa has improved from 79.62% in 2019 to 80.27% in 2022. Average cancellation rates are the lowest in these two regions, at just 0.83%.

There are no major European carriers in the Top 20, perhaps not a surprise due to airport disruption in the summer of 2022.

Durban (DUR) is the airport with the highest OTP across the Middle East and Africa in
2022, with 89.73% of flights operating on-time. Only three of the Top 10 are in Africa including Cape Town (2) and Addis Ababa (6), with the remainder located across the Middle East.
There is a considerable range of OTP across this group, from 89.73% down to 70.21%.
Bahrain (BAH) has the highest level of cancellations in the group, at 2.50% in 2022.