Beyond merely a cultural quirk, punctuality may have economic benefits.
It has struggled in recent years as cost-cutting ate into reliability (Ryanair, by contrast, has a good reputation for punctuality and keeping passengers together with their luggage).
"We hold ourselves to a very rigorous standard of punctuality, " says Mark Dunkerley, Hawaiian Airlines' president and chief executive, adding that the airline considers a flight "late" if it arrives even one minute behind schedule.
Finally, he arrived at work a half hour late a rare upset to his normal punctuality.
The company says having a short turnaround time is hitting punctuality.
In the year-long figures for 1999, only one company - the Isle of Wight Island Line - managed to get into category A by scoring top grades in both punctuality and reliability.
This statement, repeated often by Geithner, is analogous to your boss insisting that he believes punctuality is integral to running a successful business, even as he engages in behavior that causes him routinely to be tardy.
Passenger Focus singled out South West Trains and Chiltern for problems with punctuality, saying there had been a decline in satisfaction from 2010, but praised London Overground and Merseyrail for improvements.
Overall, the best performer in a 2009 Middle Seat scorecard weighing on-time punctuality, flight cancellations, baggage handling, complaints and bumping was Southwest Airlines Co.
WSJ: An Airline Report Card: Fewer Delays, Hassles Last Year, but Bumpy Times May Be Ahead
The report also says passenger satisfaction with punctuality and reliability has risen 2% to 83%, a level only achieved once before, in autumn 2009.
United said its Sunday domestic mainline flight punctuality of 77.1% exceeded its record on the same Sunday a year earlier, and it reported that as of mid-afternoon Monday its domestic mainline on-time flight performance stood at 90.6%.
If punctuality had dropped below the 82% target, season ticket holders would have qualified for a 5% discount.
After a 10 hour flight, they land at Frankfurt and here, it's all about speed and punctuality.
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