Two South African airports have scored highly in the 'Punctuality League 2023' report. This report was compiled by global aviation database and analytics company OAG, using 2022 data, and released on Tuesday. It listed, in the order of their On-Time Performance (OTP), the top 20 airports in the world, as well as the top ten airports in each of the regions into which OAG divided the globe.

The report listed Durban’s King Shaka International Airport in fifth place in the global top 20, with an OTP of 89.73%. And Cape Town International Airport was ranked 16th, with an OTP of 87.02%. (Although not noted in the report, both these airports were owned and operated by the State-owned Airports Company South Africa.) However, Cape Town’s cancellation rate, at 1.02%, was lower than that for King Shaka (1.37%).

These two airports were also the only African airports in the top 20. Even so, that meant Africa ranked higher than either Europe or North America: no airport from either continent made it on to the 2023 top 20 list.

Asia led the list, with eleven airports in the top 20. Ten of these airports were in Japan. They were Osaka International (in first place), Matsuyama (2nd), Miyazaki (3rd), Nagoya Chubu Centrair International (4th), Kagoshima (6th), Kumamoto (7th), Fukuoka (10th), Sapporo New Chitose (11th), Tokyo International/Haneda (12th) and Okinawa Naha (18th). The other Asian airport on the list was India’s Coimbatore (13th).

In terms of numbers of airports on the top 20 list, the second most successful country was Brazil, with three. These were Pinto Martins/Fortaleza International (8th), Belo Horizonte Tancredo Neves (14th) and Salgado Filho International (19th). Ecuador matched South Africa, with two airports in the rankings, Mariscal Sucre International (17th) and José Joaquin de Olemedo International (20th). Panama had one airport listed, Panama City Tocumen International (9th), as did Peru, with the Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport (15th).

Naturally, the two South African airports took the top two places in the top 10 OTP list for the Middle East and Africa region. Only one other African airport made it on to this list, namely Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa International, in sixth place, with an OTP of 81.73%. (Third place was occupied by Jordan’s Amman Queen Alia International, with an OTP of 84.31%, making it the best in the Middle East.)