10 September 2008

Punctuality of charter flights down

The punctuality of charter flights from UK airports fell in the second quarter of 2008.

According to figures released today by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the proportion of on-time charter flights fell by eight percentage points to 59%, compared with 67% in the same period the year before.

At Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Newcastle airports, performance fell compared with the previous year.

The average delay across all charter flights monitored increased from 25 minutes in the second quarter of 2007 to 31 minutes in the second quarter of 2008.

All airports with a significant number of charter flights saw increases in their average delay.

Meanwhile, the punctuality of scheduled flights improved in the second quarter of 2008 at Gatwick and UK regional airports, but dropped at Heathrow and London City.

At Heathrow, 62% of flights were on time during the second quarter of 2008, representing a decline of two percentage points over the same period in 2007.

At London City, 62% of flights were on time (down three percentage points).

The overall on-time performance (defined as early to 15 minutes late) of scheduled flights at the 10 UK airports monitored increased by one percentage point to 69%.

Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and all regional airports monitored improved their scheduled punctuality performance in the second quarter of 2008 compared with 2007.

At Newcastle, on-time performance increased by five percentage points to 79%, and at Gatwick and Edinburgh by three percentage points to 68% and 75% respectively.

The average delay across all the scheduled flights monitored remained at the same level of the second quarter of 2007 at 17 minutes.

Average delays decreased at Stansted, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle, whilst increasing by one minute at Heathrow, London City, and Luton in the second quarter of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007.

Among the 75 scheduled and charter destinations with the most passengers in quarter two of 2008, Los Angeles International recorded the worst on-time performance of 50%.

New York (Newark) and New York (JFK) had the highest average delays on scheduled destinations with 30 and 28 minutes average delay respectively.

Cardiff Wales had the highest on-time performance (87%) and Leeds Bradford had the shortest average delay (seven minutes) amongst the top 75 destinations.

Dalaman was one of the three charter destinations among the top 75 destinations and the worst performer of the three. It recorded an on-time performance of 58% and an average delay of 32 minutes.

By Bev Fearis