American Airlines says it canceled fewest flights during holidays among major carriers

American Airlines said it has canceled fewer flights during this holiday period than any other major carrier and saw its on-time performance improve by about 15% over the same time last year.

The Fort Worth-based airline has seen nearly 7.8 million passengers on 71,000 flights since Dec. 20. The holiday period extends through Jan. 8.

American also said Wednesday that its investments in baggage handling across its network resulted in a 66% improvement in a key metric measuring mishandled baggage. This was expected to be a much busier travel season than in recent years; Dallas-Fort Worth International predicted the busiest winter holiday season in the airport’s 50-year history.

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“American was able to achieve this strong performance despite weather in many parts of the country and a significant volume of non-scheduled, non-air carrier operations that resulted in increased air traffic control delays,” the airline said in a statement.

None of American’s scheduled mainline flights were canceled during the first six days of the holiday travel period. It reported a total of 16 mainline flight cancellations as of Jan. 1.