NEW YORK » The nation’s largest airlines ran fewer flights on time in March than in the previous month, the Department of Transportation said Monday.

Hawaiian Airlines, though, bucked the trend.

U.S. airlines arrived on time 82.2 percent of the time in March, down from 86.2 percent in February. A hailstorm in March led to three planes sitting on the tarmac for more than three hours.

The average on-time rate was improved from a year earlier, when it was 79.2 percent. Hawaiian ran the most flights on schedule in March at 92.5 percent, up from 91.2 percent in February when it was tied for second. AirTran Airways (90.9 percent) and U.S. Airways (87.3 percent) were second and third, respectively, in March.

United, Virgin America and regional carrier ExpressJet were at the bottom of the list. A flight arriving within 15 minutes of its posted arrival time is considered on time.

In other categories, Hawaiian ranked third in oversales, or passengers denied boarding, with 0.36 per 10,000 passengers; fifth in customer complaints with 0.64 per 100,000 boardings; and ninth in mishandled baggage with 2.78 reports per 1,000 passengers.

At the end of March, there were no flights considered chronically delayed for two consecutive months. The government calls a flight chronically delayed if it arrives more than 30 minutes late more than half the time.

Airlines lost or damaged more bags in March than the month before but fewer than a year earlier. February’s rate of mishandled bags was the lowest since the Department of Transportation began keeping records in 1987.

DOT also said Monday that more passengers were denied boarding due to overselling in the first quarter of 2012 than the same period a year ago. It didn’t break out March figures for bumped passengers.