Hawaiian Airlines regained the top spot as the nation’s most punctual domestic air carrier with an 87.3 percent on-time record in March.

Hawaiian had been second, behind Delta Airlines in December and January, and Alaska Airlines in February.

The federal government counts a flight as on time if it arrives within 14 minutes of schedule.

Alaska finished second in March with an 85.6 percent on-time performance while Delta was third at 84 percent.

The government said 78.7 percent of flights operated by the 14 largest airlines arrived on time in March, up from 72.8 percent in February and 77.6 percent in March 2014.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s monthly report for March, released Monday, shows consumer complaints against airlines are rising even as the carriers get slightly better at staying on schedule.

The DOT received more complaints from consumers in March than it did in either the previous month or March 2014.

While the numbers are still very small — only about 1 in every 50,000 passengers complains to the government — they vary greatly among carriers.

Passengers on Frontier Airlines are 34 times more likely to complain than passengers on Southwest Airlines, which has the lowest complaint rate. Spirit Airlines has the second-worst rate. Hawaiian had the eighth-fewest consumer complaints with 1.5 per 100,000 passengers.

In other categories, Hawaiian had the lowest number of cancellations with 0.2 percent, or 13 out of 6,313 flights; and in involuntary denied boardings, which is reported on a quarterly basis, Hawaiian was the best with 0.03 per 10,000 passengers.

But Hawaiian ranked fifth for fewest mishandled-baggage reports with 2.68 per 1,000 passengers.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.