American Airlines moves up in on-time rankings

American Airlines ranked ninth among 18 U.S. carriers in on-time rankings in January.

Normally, a No. 9 spot is no reason for celebration. But it marks progress for the Fort Worth-based carrier as it continues a slow climb from the bottom rungs of the ladder.

For three months in the first half of 2008, it finished at the absolute bottom. After the carrier added time to the schedule and took steps to improve the operation, American briefly climbed high in the rankings before dropping back down a year ago.

Since hitting 17th of 19 carriers last June, American has improved nearly every month since then. The one exception was December when it matched its November finish at 10th.

As usual, Hawaiian Airlines topped the list in January, American Eagle ended up 18th. That's an improvement from its 19th place finish in December, but only because the list was shortened to 18 carriers in January.

Here's the full DOT list. A flight is considered on time if it arrives within 14 minutes of schedule.

Rank	Carrier	On-time
1	Hawaiian	86.73%
2	Alaska	85.76%
3	United	83.66%
4	Frontier	83.16%
5	Continental	82.34%
6	Delta	81.40%
7	Southwest	80.08%
8	Mesa	79.97%
9	American	79.75%
10	AirTran	79.52%
11	US Airways	79.38%
12	Atlantic Southeast	78.34%
13	ExpressJet	76.01%
14	SkyWest	74.62%
15	JetBlue	74.54%
16	Comair	72.98%
17	Pinnacle	72.98%
18	American Eagle	72.81%
	All Airlines	78.69%

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