Improving the IATA delay data coding system for enhanced data analytics

•Three new airline delay data coding schemes were proposed to improve the IATA delay coding system.•A study schedule was used to evaluate new coding schemes and benchmark against the IATA system.•Results showed that the improved reporting style of new schemes is essential for data quality.•New schemes helped automated data analytics to different extents, depending on scheme design.•New schemes can also minimise potential confusions at data collection stages.

Aviation delays inconvenience travelers and result in financial losses for stakeholders. Without complex data pre-processing, delay data collected by the existing IATA delay coding system are inadequate to support advanced delay analytics, e.g. large-scale delay propagation tracing in an airline network. Consequently, we developed three new coding schemes aiming at improving the current IATA system. These schemes were tested with specific analysis tasks using simulated delay data and were benchmarked against the IATA system. It was found that a coding scheme with a well-designed reporting style can facilitate automated data analytics and data mining, and an improved grouping of delay codes can minimise potential confusion at the data entry and recording stages.