Flight Delays with Percentiles

We have further extended our Flight Delays API endpoint to include more detailed delay insights of specific flights.

Previously, this endpoint provided data on how many flights under a specific number were delayed or early within specific time brackets (e.g., 15 to 30 minutes late, 30 to 60 minutes late, etc.) and the median delay for every combination of airport and hour.

You may also learn more about previous updates to this endpoint here and here.

Now, in addition to the median delay, we have introduced delay calculations for other percentiles ranging from 0.5 to 0.95 in increments of 0.5. This means you can now gain insights not only into the median delay (the 50th percentile) but also into various other percentiles, offering a more comprehensive understanding of flight delay patterns.

Please find a fragment of the updated API response below, with a new section highlighted:

{
            "airportIcao": "XXXX",
            "class": "FlightAndHour",
            "scheduledHourUtc": 7,
            "medianDelay": "00:03:00",
            "delayPercentiles": [
                {
                    "percentile": 5,
                    "delay": "-00:04:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 10,
                    "delay": "-00:03:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 15,
                    "delay": "-00:02:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 20,
                    "delay": "-00:02:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 25,
                    "delay": "-00:01:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 30,
                    "delay": "00:00:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 35,
                    "delay": "00:01:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 40,
                    "delay": "00:02:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 45,
                    "delay": "00:02:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 50,
                    "delay": "00:03:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 55,
                    "delay": "00:04:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 60,
                    "delay": "00:10:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 65,
                    "delay": "00:11:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 70,
                    "delay": "00:13:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 75,
                    "delay": "00:15:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 80,
                    "delay": "00:19:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 85,
                    "delay": "00:22:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 90,
                    "delay": "00:33:00"
                },
                {
                    "percentile": 95,
                    "delay": "00:56:00"
                }
            ],
            "numConsideredFlights": 90,
            "numFlightsDelayedBrackets": [
                {
                    "delayedTo": "-02:00:00",
                    "num": 0,
                    "percentage": 0.0
                },
                {
                    "delayedFrom": "-02:00:00",
                    "delayedTo": "-01:00:00",
                    "num": 0,
                    "percentage": 0.0
                },
                {
                    "delayedFrom": "-01:00:00",
                    "delayedTo": "-00:30:00",
                    "num": 0,
                    "percentage": 0.0
                },
                {
                    "delayedFrom": "-00:30:00",
                    "delayedTo": "-00:15:00",
                    "num": 0,
                    "percentage": 0.0
                },
                {
                    "delayedFrom": "-00:15:00",
                    "delayedTo": "00:15:00",
                    "num": 67,
                    "percentage": 0.7444
                },
                {
                    "delayedFrom": "00:15:00",
                    "delayedTo": "00:30:00",
                    "num": 13,
                    "percentage": 0.1444
                },
                {
                    "delayedFrom": "00:30:00",
                    "delayedTo": "01:00:00",
                    "num": 7,
                    "percentage": 0.0778
                },
                {
                    "delayedFrom": "01:00:00",
                    "delayedTo": "02:00:00",
                    "num": 1,
                    "percentage": 0.0111
                },
                {
                    "delayedFrom": "02:00:00",
                    "num": 2,
                    "percentage": 0.0222
                }
            ],
            "fromUtc": "2023-12-31 07:55",
            "toUtc": "2024-03-30 07:55"
        },

This way, you will be able to determine by how much the vast majority or minority of flights under a requested number were delayed/early, while “vast majority” and “vast minority” being the terms defined by you.

No changes required from your side to access this new feature. AeroDataBox is already updated to return the new information. You can normally get access to the endpoint by subscribing to our API.

Just a friendly reminder that the availability of flight delays statistics is subject to our data coverage limitations. If we do not have live / ADS-B coverage in regions where the requested flight operates (meaning that we have no information about actual flight departure/arrival times), we cannot calculate the delay statistics and provide it to you.