Incheon Int’l Airport ranked the most delay-prone among major hubs

South Korea’s main gateway Incheon International Airport, despite boasting the world’s best service for 12 straight years, is the most delayed airport among global hubs, data showed.

A report from Flightstats Inc., a U.S. flight data provider, showed Monday that Incheon International Airport ranked the lowest among the 44 major global hubs in terms of on-time departure performance in January, with an average delay time of 43.9 minutes.

The figure measured the percentage of occasions in which flights departed 15 minutes after the scheduled departure time.

Incheon showed an average on-time performance of 50 percent last month, trailing far behind the 88.5 percent of the No. 1 Seattle-Tacoma International Airport of the U.S. and the average 78.2 percent of the 44 hubs on the list.

An official from Korea’s transport ministry cited the recent traffic spike in Beijing due to increased flight volume as the main cause for the delay in flight departure. Other reasons included China’s air force trainings and bad weather conditions, especially in the winter.

Seattle Airport topped the list with 88.5 percent followed by Tokyo’s Haneda Airport with 87.1 percent. Two other U.S. airports came next, with Houston landing third at 85.2 percent and Las Vegas fourth at 84.5 percent. Rome followed with 84.3 percent.

Incheon has been named the most delayed airport for two straight years. In January 2017, it ranked 49th out of 49 airports with an on-time departure rate of 48.9 percent. It remained at the bottom of the list in the winter months of February and December, ranking 47th and 43th at 55.1 percent and 53.1 percent, respectively.

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