Go-arounds occupy an interesting operational space in commercial aviation: they are simultaneously one of the most safety-critical maneuvers a crew can execute and, paradoxically, one of the least formally tracked events in many airline operations. In Part 121 carrier environments, a go-around is not classified as an incident under FAA or ICAO definitions — it is a standard, expected maneuver that every crew is trained to execute and that carries no regulatory reporting requirement unless accompanied by a specific safety event such as a runway incursion, TCAS resolution advisory, or airspace deviation. Dispatch systems at most carriers do capture the delay cause codes associated with a late arrival, and a go-around that adds meaningful block time will typically appear under a weather, ATC, or operational delay category — but the go-around itself is rarely isolated as a discrete data point in those systems. Whether a carrier then cross-references that delay code back to approach quality or crew decision-making varies considerably by airline and by the maturity of their Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) program.
The more revealing data layer on go-arounds exists not in dispatch records but in FOQA and Quick Access Recorder (QAR) analysis. Airlines with robust FOQA programs actively mine approach data for stabilization exceedances, late go-around initiations, and energy state anomalies — exactly the kind of granular information that links approach quality to go-around occurrence. That analysis is typically handled by safety departments rather than dispatch or operations control, and it flows into trend reporting that may never surface to line crews in a direct feedback loop. The gap the original question identifies — that dispatch often doesn't formally notate a go-around as the causal factor in a delay — reflects a structural separation between operational performance data and safety data that is fairly common across the industry. On-time performance is a commercial metric; go-around rates are a safety metric; and at many carriers, those two data streams are managed by different departments with limited cross-pollination.
The safety implications of how airlines culturally treat go-arounds are significant. SKYbrary data drawn from the 2013 Go-Around Safety Forum — still widely cited in current safety literature — found that only approximately 17 percent of crews execute a go-around when approach parameters call for one, meaning roughly 97 percent of unstabilized approaches are continued to landing against standard operating procedure. That statistic underscores a go-around phobia that persists across operator types, driven by pressure around on-time performance, fuel burn, passenger anxiety, and, in some environments, implicit or explicit cultural discouragement. Non-punitive go-around policies are widely recognized by ICAO, FAA, and safety organizations as the foundational requirement for changing that behavior. Carriers that publish "league tables" of go-around frequency, or where crews feel that executing a go-around invites scrutiny, systematically increase the probability that crews will continue unstabilized approaches — an accident chain that has contributed to numerous hull losses globally.
For corporate and business aviation operators flying under Part 91 or Part 135, the tracking question is even less standardized. Without the FOQA infrastructure common to Part 121 carriers, go-around data is largely self-reported through voluntary safety reporting systems such as NASA ASRS, internal SMS programs, or not captured at all. The AOPA Air Safety Institute has documented a troubling long-term trend: go-around-related accidents in general aviation actually increased over a twenty-year study period, a pattern attributable in part to delayed decision-making, high-and-fast energy states on final, and the unique hazard of a botched go-around following an already-compromised approach. For Part 135 operators and flight departments, the practical takeaway is that formalizing go-around tracking — even informally through a safety report or post-flight debrief entry — creates a data set that can identify systemic approach environment issues at specific airports, recurring weather patterns, or crew tendencies that a safety committee can address proactively rather than reactively.
The broader industry trend is toward treating go-around rates as a leading safety indicator rather than an operational nuisance or a neutral background event. ICAO and major airline safety groups have pushed for normalized go-around culture for over a decade, but the performance-versus-safety tension the original question identifies remains real and structurally embedded in how most carriers design their operations control and dispatch systems. The ideal model — where a go-around triggers both a delay code in the operations system and an automatic flag in the FOQA or SMS system — exists at some carriers but is far from universal. Until approach quality data and operational performance data are routinely joined, dispatch will continue to see the symptom (a late arrival) without the cause (an unstabilized approach that required a go-around), and the opportunity to prevent the next one will be lost in the gap between two systems that rarely talk to each other.