Flight delays worse at UK airports
[13th June 2008]
Flight delays are getting worse at UK airports according to new statistics and Heathrow is the worst performing airport in the survey.
At Heathrow airport only 56% of scheduled flights were ‘on time’ during the first quarter of 2008, a period that included the shambolic opening of the new Terminal 5. This is a fall of 9% compared to the same period in 2007.
For its statistics, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) defines ‘on time’ as ‘early to 15 minutes late’. Across all the airports monitored average delays on scheduled flights increased from 16 minutes in the first quarter of 2007 to 18 minutes in 2008.
London City airport also performed badly, with only 58% of scheduled flights on time, down from 70% in the previous year. But performance improved at Gatwick, Luton, Stansted and Birmingham airports.
The story is similar for charter flights, with on time performance declining by 3% to 62%. Stansted was the only airport where on time performance improved, by 2%. Average delays on charter flights increased from 27 minutes to 28 minutes.
The CAA statistics also look at performance on the 75 scheduled and charter destinations with the most passengers. Beware if you’re booking a flight to Dubai, Istanbul or Helsinki. On time performance on these flights was less than 50%, and Dubai and Istanbul flights had average delays of more than 30 minutes.
The only charter destination in the top 75 was Tenerife (Sur Reina). Here on time performance was 73% and the average delay 19 minutes.
Best on time performance was on flights to Guernsey (86%), and the shortest average delay was nine minutes on flights to Shannon.
Written by: Nick Purdom
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