How bad was flying in 2006?

Horrendous, hideous, agonizing, insufferable, unendurable, unbearable - am I getting warm? Well, the government came out with its annual report card covering on-time arrivals, lost baggage, customer complaints, etc. and 2006 was not a year anyone wants to repeat. About 75 percent of domestic flights arrived on time last year, the lowest since 2000. LAX ranked 15th among individual airports, at 77 percent. A year ago, it was ninth, with an 80 percent on-time rate. Bags were mishandled, lost or misdirected at a rate of 6.7 per 1,000 passengers, the highest since 1990 (perhaps due to the new carry-on restrictions), while the rate of bumping passengers off flights was the highest since 2000.

The number of flight cancellations did fall and, in perhaps the strangest statistic, overall customer complaints to the government dropped almost 5 percent. Maybe folks have just given up. In looking over the LAX numbers for December, I noticed that the best chance for an on-time arrival was between 7-8 a.m. (what flights even come in at that hour?), while the worst times were 6-7 p.m. and 10-11 p.m. As for on-time departures, the best time was 6-7 a.m. (92.5 percent) and the worst was 7-8 p.m. (66.7 percent), followed closely by 2-3 p.m. (67.6 percent). Here's a link to the full report.