This document analyzes flight data from Fort Lauderdale International Airport in 2012 to determine patterns in on-time arrivals and departures as well as delays. It finds that December and summer months tend to have the most delays while Fridays have the most on-time arrivals. Carrier delays made up the majority of total delays. American Airlines saw the most arrival delays while Frontier Airlines experienced the most departure delays and on-time arrivals.

1. Dealing with Large Data Sets:
Airline Departure and Arrival Data for Florida Airports
(2012)
Group:Group 17
Group Members: Andrew Cruz, John Idasetima, David Battle, Michael Ritchhart,
Erik Lopez
Course: LIS3706
Date: 4/24/2013

2. 1. When is it more likely to depart and arrive on schedule to your assigned airport?
Flight schedules seem to have many different variations with some days being delayed
and other days being ahead of schedule. These flights are often changed due to unforeseen
events, but some delays can be prevented. A detailed analysis was conducted on the Ft.
Lauderdale airport to highlight when flights were more likely to depart and arrive on schedule. In
the analysis the data was separated by days, months, and years measuring the average amount of
minutes flights were delayed departing from and arriving to the airport. Notes were also taken on
the amount of flights that arrived on time and the amount of flights that departed on time.
The data was originally sorted by the airport from which the flight originated from. Being
that there was still data about the flights from the Ft. Lauderdale airport remaining the data had
to be sorted again to extract the remaining information. The remaining information pertained to
the flights that departed from other airports but arrived at the Ft. Lauderdale airport. The
departure and arrival data pertaining to the Ft. Lauderdale airport was then selected and removed
to create a new document.
An analysis was done for each month initially focusing on the total flights for each month
ranging from 9,381 to 13,159. These numbers were found then separated into flights that
departed early, on time, and late. To determine these numbers a filter was placed on the
departure delay minutes. The early, on time, and late flights were separated by different numbers
which were either positive, zero, or negative respectfully. The same was also done for the flights
that arrived at the airport by placing a filter on the arrival delay minutes. These flights were also
separated by different numbers except the positive numbered flights were late, the negative
numbered flights were early, and the on time flights remained the same. Averages for each day
and month were found for these numbers by adding up the total amount of minutes for each day.
For departures the averages for each day ranged from 2.3 to 19.8 minutes. The range for the
months was between 4.8 and 14.6 minutes. The same was also done for the flight arrivals with
the average minutes for daysbeing between -6.4 and 18.4. When separated by months the range
was between -0.68 and 12.1 minutes. Percentages were then found for these totals by creating a
function that took the amount of early, on time, and late flights then dividing it by the total
amount flights for the airport.
Another data analysis was completed measuring the amount of flights that departed early
and on time for each day of the week for every month. For this analysis two filters were placed
on the graph with one being on the day of week column and the other on departure delay column
that displays the minutes the flight was delayed. A custom filter was used for the departure delay
column selecting all rows that were positive or equal to zero. After the filter was added a
function was added to the column, which counted each flight for that day. The amounts of flights
were rangingbetween 361 to 1140 flights. A similar procedure was followed when the analysis of
the flights that arrived early or on time was performed. This procedure differed from the previous
process in that the numbers selected were in the arrival delay column and the early and on time

3. numbers were negative and zero respectfully. The numbers for this analysis were ranging
between 645 and 1395.
Percentages for the flights that departed early and on time were found for each day of the
week. The values were found by taking the total amount of flights that departed early and on
time for that for that day of the week in that particular month and divided by the total amount of
early and on time flights. The values ranged between 4.68 and 14.0 percent.These steps were
repeated for the flights that arrived early or on time to the airport. The analysis returned values
ranging from 5.2 to 11.5 percent.
After carefully analyzing the flight schedules it appeared that for delayed minutes on the
flight departure April had the lowest average and December had the highest average. For flight
arrival delays February had the lowest average time while December once again had the highest
amount. September had the least amount of flights to depart from their airport on time or early
while December had the most. August had the least amount of flights to arrive on time or early to
the designated airport while March the most. Tuesday’s have the least amount of flights that
arrive early or on time while Friday’s have the most. Friday’s have the least amount of flights
that arrive on time or early to airports while Sunday has the most flights to arrive on time.
2. When is it more likely to get delayed (departure/arrival)?
Flights leaving out of Ft Lauderdale International Airport as well as flights arriving to the
airport have the possibility of being delayed. A delayed arrival into the airport can be caused by a
number of things including but not limited to: a late departure, lack of docking space, luggage
mistakes, poor weather, and much more. Flights departing from the airport can be delayed for
many similar reasons. In order to find out when flights departing from, and arriving to the Ft.
Lauderdale International Airport were more likely delayed, various data manipulations were
performed on a data set containing detailed flight information about the airport over the course of
a year.
By using filters to select only the flights departing out of Ft. Lauderdale, we were able to
figure out the number of delayed departures over the course of the year. To obtain only the
delayed flights, we filtered out all of the negative numbers, zeros, and blanks from the delayed
times dataset. Results indicated a total of 22,635 delayed departures over the course of the year.
To obtain the data correlating to delays that only related to Arrivals at the Ft. Lauderdale
Airport, we used filters to select only Ft. Lauderdale as the Destination airport, and the applied
the same filters to the Arrival Delay time dataset to remove early or unknown arrival times.
Results of this manipulation indicated a total of 25,368 delayed arrivals over the course of the
year.
Thus, it is evident that flights were more likely to be delayed when arriving to the Ft.
Lauderdale International Airport. However, while arrivals to the airport had a larger number of
delays over the course of the year, the data indicates that during specific months, the number of

4. departure delays exceeded the number of arrival delays. The only two months to fall into this
category were January, which had exactly one more delayed departure, and March, which had
exactly 25 more delayed departures than delayed arrivals. Interestingly, during both of these
months, the mean time passengers spent waiting were approximately 27 minutes for delays, and
25 minutes for arrivals.
Despite delays being more likely to occur during arrivals, the mean time spent waiting for
delayed arrivals was less than the mean time spent waiting for delayed departures for every
single month of the year. The graph below illustrates this occurrence, as well as the approximate
delay times for each month and their respective delay types.
Evidently, wait times (delays) were highest for both arrivals and departures during
December, most likely due to the traffic caused by the many holidays that take place during this
month.

5. 3. What are the likely causes of delay?
According to the information provided, the most likely cause of delay to be encountered
at the Ft. Lauderdale airport is a carrier delay. According to Federal Aviation Administration a
carrier delay is “Carrier delay is within the control of the air carrier. Examples of occurrences
that may determine carrier delay are: aircraft cleaning, aircraft damage, awaiting the arrival of
connecting passengers or crew, baggage, bird strike, cargo loading, catering, computer, outage-
carrier equipment, crew legality (pilot or attendant rest), damage by hazardous goods,
engineering inspection, fueling, handling disabled passengers, late crew, lavatory servicing,
maintenance, over sales, potable water servicing, removal of unruly passenger, slow boarding or
seating, stowing carry-on baggage, weight and balance delays.” Due to this long laundry list of
carrier delay causes, it is easy to see why this delay is the most frequent.
After research I found that the carrier delays are not usually caused by just one of the
previously mentioned scenarios. For most delays, there is a sequence of these events that are the
culprit. For example, a bird strike (which doesn’t happen too often) could cause a minor aircraft
damage. Even minor aircraft damage is treated as a very serious matter for the safety of the
passengers and the crew. The repair of the minor damage can range anywhere from 1 hour to a
few days. Once the aircraft damage is repaired, there is a required engineering inspection that has
to be implemented. You can now see that the rare chance of hitting a bird that damages the plane
can be the cause for a quite lengthy delay.
The table below displays the total number of carrier delays for each month in the year of
2012. The total number (13,341) of carrier delays far exceeds the total amount for any other type
of delay mentioned. This data was gathered by separating the given information by airports, and
then filtering the carrier delays from greatest to smallest. Once filtered, the tallies were counted
up to give the numbers that are presented.
Total Amount of Carrier Delays for 2012
January February March April May June
1007 1222 1223 879 904 1078
July August September October November December
1375 1254 713 958 975 1753
Total amount of carrier delays 2012: 13,341

6. 4. What are the numbers of cancellations, delays per month/year?
According to the data provided, there were 0 flight cancellations for the Ft. Lauderdale
International Airport in the 2012 year. This can be proven by the fact that every flight within the
year has a scheduled departure time followed by an actual departure time. Because there is a
departure, it is safe to assume that there are no cancellations. There are in fact flights that
departed and have no arrival times, but there isn’t enough information to guarantee that a
cancellation was officially made. A plane could have no arrival times for many reasons including
wrecks, improper logging, etc. Nevertheless, the table below displays the amount of flights that
had no arrivals to the Ft. Lauderdale International Airport in the 2012 year.
Flights with No Arrivals 2012
January February March April May June
39 25 66 28 45 62
July August September October November December
78 89 39 65 74 71
Total number of flights with no arrivals: 681
Unlike the previously mentioned fact of no cancellations for the 2012 year, the Ft.
Lauderdale International Airport has plenty of delays for the year. Fortunately, we have been
provided with an abundance of flight arrival and departure data. This data allows us to figure out
how many delays and cancellations took place. Furthermore, the data specifies exactly what
caused the delays for the flights. The categories for the delays are as follows:
1. Carrier Delay
2. Weather Delay
3. NAS Delay
4. Security Delay
5. Late Aircraft Delay
We can calculate the number of delays by searching for arrival delays that are greater
than zero. This is an easy task to accomplish with the filtered data. With that information, we can
find the following:

7. Total Amount of Delays for 2012 (arrivals + departures)
January February March April May June
4016 3918 4892 3917 3841 4181
July August September October November December
4885 4477 2725 3806 4072 5678
Total Amount of Delays for 2012 (arrivals and departures): 50,408
The total number of delays relevant to the Ft. Lauderdale International Airport is 50,408.
This does seem to be a number that is quite high, but please note that this is not only a
calculation of departures from the airport, but also a calculation of the number of late arrivals
coming in to the airport as well. This data was extracted by ordering the Delay minutes column
of the Ft. Lauderdale Airport in order from greatest to least. Once this was done, I scrolled down
to the point where the last delay with a positive number (not including 0) was present. If you
look at the table you will notice that summer months (June, July, and August) and Holiday
months (December and November) have the highest rate of delays. This is easily believable
because these some of Florida’s most trafficked dates.
5. What are the number of on-time arrivals and departures?
The extracted flight data can be used to find the exact number of on-time arrivals and
departures for Ft. Lauderdale International Airport. Filters must be applied to columns in order to
sort the data. The origin airport IDs, destination airport IDs, and arrival/departure delays columns
are used extensively in our analysis.
On-time arrivals and departures will have a value that's equal to 0 for their respective
delay column. The information is derived from each airline that operates with Fort Lauderdale
International Airport. The following graph represents the number of on-time arrivals and
departures for 2012:

8. Analysis of On-Time Arrivals
The destination airport IDs must match with Ft. Lauderdale International Airport. Flights
are inbound to the airport, so they're arrivals. The values for the arrival delay column must equal
0. When this information is filtered, the records can be tallied and the number of on-time arrivals
can be found. The average number of flight arrivals per month for 2012 is 121.83. The total
number of on-time arrivals for 2012 is 1462.
Analysis of On-Time Departures
Different columns are used to find the departure data. The origin airport IDs must match
with Ft. Lauderdale International Airport. This is due to the fact that flights are departing from
that airport. The values for the departure delay column must be equal to 0. The number of on-
time departures is derived from records that meet the filtering criteria.
The average number of departures per month for 2012 is 304. With 3648 total on-time
departures, it's apparent that Fort Lauderdale International Airport has a greater amount of on-
time departing flights than arriving flights.
Finding Airlines with More On-Time and Delayed Flights
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
On-Time Arrivals and Departures for 2012
Arrivals
Departures

9. Analysis
Frontier Airlines has the highest number of departure delays. Southwest Airlines has the
greatest amount of on-time departures. American Airlines has the highest number of arrival
delays. Frontier Airlines has the greatest amount of on-time arrivals.
In order to find the number of on-time arrivals/departures for each airliner, you must add
an additional filter to the data. Once again, the destination and origin columns are used to
determine the amount of on-time flights. In order to find the number of on-time arrivals for Fort
Lauderdale, you simply have to filter the destination to Fort Lauderdale International Airport and
you must filter the arrival delays column for 0.
Unlike the previous analysis, the carrier column must be filtered in order to find the
number of on-time arrivals for an airline. For instance, American Airlines had 111 on-time
arrivals for 2012. The code for American Airlines is "AA." Other codes can be found in the
document that accompanies the data.
If there's a delay or an early departure, then the value for the arrival delays column will
NOT be equal to zero. One must use the origin and the departure delay columns to find the
number of on-time departures from the airport. These steps are the same steps as before, but the
difference is that the data is also being sorted by the carrier column. Both sets of data must be
recorded from each airline.
The same process must be repeated to find the number of delayed flights. The arrival and
departure delay columns must be filtered for values greater than 0. A negative value indicates an
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
Departure Delay %
Departure On-Time %
Arrival Delay %
Arrival On-Time %

10. early flight, a 0 indicates an on-time flight, and a greater than zero value indicates a delayed
flight. Delays can also be further subdivided for specific reasons (such as carrier, weather, etc).
The number of arrival and departure delays must be recorded.
After this is done, the total number of departures and arrivals for each airliner is recorded.
On-time and delayed departures are divided by the total number of flights for each airline. The
same thing is done for arrivals. Once this is done, the percentages of on-time and delayed flights
can be placed onto a graph.