Hawaiian Airlines led all U.S. carriers in on-time performance in September as overall punctuality in the industry improved, the U.S. Transportation Department reported yesterday.

Hawaiian also had the fewest number of canceled flights in September, bucking the trend of higher domestic cancellations compared with the same month a year ago, according to the DOT report.

Hawaiian topped the list with an on-time arrival rate in September of 95.1 percent. Regional carrier Frontier Airlines was No. 2 at 91.4 percent and regional carrier Pinnacle Airlines was No. 3 at 90.6 percent. Delta Air Lines Inc.'s regional subsidiary Comair had the worst on-time performance in September.

Hawaiian had the fewest canceled flights in September at 0.2 percent, representing 11 cancellations out of 4,892 total flights. Hawaiian ranked third among all carriers for fewest misplaced bags during September, with 2.36 mishandled baggage reports for every 1,000 passengers.

The DOT's Bureau of Transportation Statistics said the 19 carriers reporting on-time performance recorded an overall on-time arrival rate of 84.9 percent in September, better than the 81.7 percent recorded a year earlier and the 78.4 percent in August of this year.

The agency said the carriers in September canceled 1.8 percent of their scheduled domestic flights, a higher rate than both the 1.1 percent cancellation rate of September 2007 and the 1.6 percent in August of this year. Hurricanes Gustav and Ike made landfall in the U.S. in September.

The airlines overall posted a mishandled baggage rate of 3.86 reports per 1,000 passengers in September, an improvement over both September 2007's rate of 5.36 and this past August's 4.98.

Complaints also dropped. The DOT said it received 684 complaints about airline service from consumers in September, down 23.8 percent from the 898 complaints filed in September 2007 and 32 percent fewer than the 1,006 received in August of this year.

Second-to-last in August, Comair had the lowest on-time arrival rate in September, at 77.4 percent. One Comair flight, from Cleveland to Atlanta, was late 82.8 percent of the time in September.

Atlanta-based Delta's on-time arrival rate ranked ninth in September, at 84.4 percent.

Regional carrier Mesa Airlines had the second-lowest on-time arrival rate in September, at 78.1 percent, while UAL Corp.'s United Airlines had the third-lowest on-time arrival rate in the month, at 79.8 percent.