The Philadelphia International Airport was faced with a glut of spring-break travelers from across the region last week, and despite recent trends there were few delays or major problems, according to officials.
Philadelphia's airport ranks at the bottom of the pack among the nation's major airports in terms of on-time departure rate, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
With only 59.7 percent of the airport's outbound flights departing on time in January 2005, the airport ranked last among the 31 major hubs that the BTS evaluated.
The already-bleak picture has worsened in the past year. Last January, about 75 percent of flights departed on time.
Philadelphia is not alone in suffering a decline in on-time percentages. Nationally, the average percentage of on-schedule departures for the 31 airports surveyed declined from 79.65 in January 2004 to 74.61 in January 2005.
Part of the national decline can be attributed to the winter-holiday travel fiasco in which US Airways canceled more than 400 flights and received 72,000 claims of lost baggage.
Philadelphia was the epicenter of the crisis, with delays here causing a ripple effect across the nation.
A new Department of Transportation report blames US Airways' management for failing to anticipate the high rate of sick calls from flight attendants and baggage handlers during the holidays. Philadelphia was especially hard hit by the sick calls.
Fortunately for spring-breakers last week, though, most flights left at or close to the scheduled time.
Airport spokesman Mark Pesce said that spring break typically does not rival the period between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day and the late summer in terms of volume, adding that most delays this time of year would be a result of weather, not volume.
There are, however, no slow times of year at a modern airport, Pesce said, noting that the 28.5 million passengers who used the airport last year set a new record.
Many Penn students who traveled by air found the experience mostly acceptable but noted that there was room for improvement in some areas.
College freshman Natalie Youssef flew on AirTran Airways to Florida with friends. She was pleased with the experience and said she would use the airline again.
Flying back to Philadelphia, College freshman Leslie Mah faced a 45-minute line at a security checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport, from which her Southwest Airlines flight originated.
Other than that, she said her trip went smoothly, although she mentioned that she has faced some nightmarish baggage problems in the past.
