Is Air India reliable?
Ranked 94 of 94 US airlines on on-time record.
8,177 flights · March 2025 – August 2026 · US Bureau of Transportation Statistics
45.07%
Arrived on time
Within 15 minutes of schedule
2.69%
Cancelled
Share of scheduled flights
—
When late, late by
Average across delayed arrivals
—
Delays it caused itself
Rest was weather, ATC or security
Reading Air India’s record
Air India has the worst on-time record of the 94 airlines measured here. A last place on one measure over one period is not a verdict on the airline — but it is where the odds sit if you book it.
Cancellation is where Air India stands out, and not well: it cancelled 2.69% of its flights against a median of 1.21% across the airlines here — 2.2 times the typical rate. Cancellation is also the outcome that costs a traveller a day rather than an hour, and the one that triggers a refund entitlement where delay does not.
The extremes are far apart. On AMD to LGW it arrived on time 72.99% of the time; on DEL to LHR the figure was 33.8%. Same airline, same fleet, same procedures — which is the clearest argument on this site for checking the route rather than the carrier.
Each axis is a percentile against the other US airlines in the same period, not an absolute score. Further out is better than most; nearer the centre is worse than most.
Air India in five measures
An airline's headline on-time rate hides more than it shows. Two carriers can both arrive on time 75% of the time while one is late by twelve minutes and the other by an hour, or while one is evenly mediocre everywhere and the other is excellent on most routes and dreadful on a few.
These five axes pull those apart. Each is scored against the other US airlines in the same period rather than on an absolute scale, because on-time rates cluster tightly enough that raw numbers would draw every carrier as the same shape.
Same everywhere is the one worth reading twice: it measures how far Air India’s on-time rate moves from route to route. A carrier scoring low there has an average propped up by routes you may not be flying.
Its most reliable routes
- AMD → LGW Ahmedabad to London 72.99%
- BLR → LHR Bengaluru to London 63.51%
- LGW → AMD London to Ahmedabad 60.85%
- LHR → BLR London to Bengaluru 58.37%
- LGW → ATQ London to Amritsar 57.05%
- BOM → LHR Mumbai to London 53.01%
- ATQ → LGW Amritsar to London 52.9%
- ATQ → BHX Amritsar to Birmingham 52.24%
- BHX → DEL Birmingham to New Delhi 44.39%
- LHR → BOM London to Mumbai 43.47%
Its worst routes
- DEL → LHR New Delhi to London 33.8%
- LHR → DEL London to New Delhi 35.81%
- BHX → ATQ Birmingham to Amritsar 36.76%
- DEL → BHX New Delhi to Birmingham 38.95%
- LHR → BOM London to Mumbai 43.47%
- BHX → DEL Birmingham to New Delhi 44.39%
- ATQ → BHX Amritsar to Birmingham 52.24%
- ATQ → LGW Amritsar to London 52.9%
- BOM → LHR Mumbai to London 53.01%
- LGW → ATQ London to Amritsar 57.05%
How Air India compares
Figures cover March 2025 – August 2026 and are counted from the regulators' own published files. A grade describes the past and is not a prediction about a particular flight, nor a safety rating. How the grade is calculated →