The turmoil inconvenienced tens of thousands of customers, placed the airline at the bottom of industry on-time rankings, caused it to rack up huge losses and sent its stock, which is mostly held by the same frustrated employees, tumbling.
Thomas Cook and Monarch were the only two airlines that failed to meet the industry standard of "on time", which is defined as early to 15 minutes late.
Even using the industry's preferred measure, where "on time" is within five minutes of the schedule for commuter trains and 10 minutes on long-distance routes, nearly a fifth of trains were late.
The Department of Transportation said the industry's on-time performance in the first six months of the year was its worst since 1995, the earliest period for which the agency has comparable data.
But despite a young fleet of planes and operational improvements that have the airline leading the industry in on-time arrivals, there has been little interest from major carriers because T.W.A.'s financial and labor woes are seen as much bigger than the strategic value of its route network.
I am told that the problems of infrastructure are so acute in certain areas that raw materials don't reach the industries here on time.
The department uses the data to track the industry's overall on-time record, which was 84 percent in October — the latest results announced last week.
Alaska Airlines, in fact, had the industry's best on-time performance for the third consecutive year in 2012, with 87 percent of flights landing on time, according to FlightStats, a data provider.
It wasn't too long ago that United was a leader in the airline industry, known for on-time flights, friendly service and an uncompromising safety record ("Bankruptcy Case Is Filed by United," front page, Dec. 10).
Donna Karan, a critic of the national system of delivering clothes to stores months before it's appropriate to wear them, said, "I'm the only one in the industry who delivers on time".
UNTIL recently, recalls Charlie Gay, a 30-year veteran of the solar-power business, venture capitalists were far too busy catering to captains of the information-technology industry to waste time on "hippy-dippy tree-huggers" like himself.
