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WASHINGTON -- More than 26% of domestic flights arrived late or were canceled last year -- the airline industry's second-poorest performance on record.

Analysts said rising passenger loads and a switch to smaller planes have intensified congestion and contributed to the logjam, which was reported Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The only time passengers had more difficulty getting to their destinations on time was in 2000, when more than 27% of flights were tardy or canceled. Excluding cancellations, however, last year was the worst on record for flight delays, with 24.2% arriving late, compared with 23.9% in 2000, according to government statistics that date back to 1995.

Atlantic Southeast Airlines, a subsidiary of SkyWest Inc., had the worst on-time arrival rate last year, at 64.7%, while Hawaiian Airlines topped the list at more than 93%. The worst month last year for the nation's 20 largest airlines was December, when more than a third of flights were late or canceled, mostly because of the weather.

There is no sign of improvement on the horizon, analysts said, because airlines continue to replace larger aircraft with smaller ones. The practice is intended to maximize profits by flying with fewer empty seats, but it also means more flights and more congestion.

President Bush has demanded action to avoid another summer of record delays, but there is little consensus among airlines, airport operators, Congress and the administration on what should be done.

The FAA has been locked in a contract dispute with the union representing air-traffic controllers since 2006. While the agency insists staffing has no impact on flight delays, the union says congestion problems will worsen unless the government hires more air-traffic controllers and pays them better.

"A smaller, less experienced workforce will have an adverse impact on system efficiency," said Paul Rinaldi, executive vice president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn.

The airlines and the FAA, meanwhile, are pressing for a new $15-billion, satellite-based air traffic control system, dubbed NextGen, that will take nearly 20 years to complete to improve operations.

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