Fewer delays at UK airports
Flight punctuality has improved at 10 UK airports in the last three months, for both schedule and charter flights.
According to the latest figures from the Civil Aviation Authority, 79% of scheduled flights arrived or left on time, seven percentage points higher than the 72% recorded in the third quarter of 2010.
The proportion of on-time charter flights increased by 10 percentage points to 73%, compared with the same period of 2010.
On-time flights are defined as those arriving or departing early or up to 15 minutes late.
The average delay across all scheduled flights monitored was 12 minutes, a fall of four minutes.
During the period there were 364,000 scheduled flights and 32,000 charter flights at the 10 airports monitored, which represents a 0.4% increase in scheduled flights and a 4.1% decrease in charter flights.
Iain Osborne, CAA group director for regulatory policy, said: “After the poor performances airlines showed on punctuality during summer 2010, we welcome the evident improvements this year.
“However, there is always potential for improvement. We expect that punctuality information like this will help consumers to compare airlines and airports, and so improve performance further by harnessing market forces.”
Among the 75 scheduled and charter destinations with the most passengers, flights to and from Larnaca recorded the worst on-time performance of 61% and Toronto the highest average delay of 23 minutes.
by Bev Fearis
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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