More flights in and out of Salt Lake City are late

SALT LAKE CITY — Formerly No. 1 in the country for the number of flights departing and arriving on time, Salt Lake City International Airport has slipped to third for departing flights and fourth for arriving flights, according to federal data released Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the data-crunching arm of the U.S. Department of Transportation, released on-time data for the nation's 29 largest airports, and from Jan. 1 to June 1 of this year, 87.5 percent of flights departed on time, down from 88.4 percent of flights in the same time period last year when the airport was No. 1. The Seattle and Portland, Ore., airports beat Salt Lake out for the Nos. 1 and 2 spots this year.

From Jan. 1 to June 1 of this year, 85.4 percent of flights arriving in Salt Lake City were on time, down from 85.6 percent in the same time period last year when the airport was No. 1. Airports in Seattle, Phoenix and Portland, Ore., beat Salt Lake out for the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 spots this year.

Nationally, nearly 3.2 million flights used U.S. airports in the first six months of this year: 586,141 of them arrived late, 549,358 departed late, 65,977 were canceled, and 8,136 were diverted.

— Laura Hancock