UK airport is named the world’s most punctual
Birmingham has been declared the most punctual airport in the world in the latest Punctuality League from OAG.
Analysis of arrival and departure times last year found over 91% flights were on time from the Midlands airport.
More than 100,000 scheduled flights passed through Birmingham last year and the most punctual routes were to Dublin, Alicante, Belfast, Dusseldorf and Glasgow, all of which achieved an on-time rate of over 93%.
Top 10 airports
1 Birmingham 91.28%
2 Osaka 89.68%
3 Panama City 89.56%
4 Belo Horizonte 88.49%
5 Cologne Bonn 88.27%
6 Cape Town 86.06%
7 Milan Bergamo 85.87%
8 Perth 85.86%
9 Bahrain 85.49%
10 Adelaide International 84.90%
Meanwhile, Monarch was confirmed as the world’s most punctual low-cost airline, with an on-time performance score of 85.67%.
It was followed by Jet2.com and easyJet, who ranked fourth and 16th respectively with scores of 82.64% and 74.7%.
Ryanair was not featured in the list as it does not provide OAG with enough data to be included in the analysis.
Monarch also jumped to fourth place in the top 10 overall airlines within Europe the Middle East and Africa, with KLM, Flybe and Iberia sitting marginally ahead.
In 2015, Monarch ranked seventh place in the league.
John Grant, senior analyst at OAG, said: "The UK’s airports and airlines have always been leaders in the global aviation industry, delivering exceptionally high service levels.
"The success of Birmingham is just another example of how the UK’s regional airports have created world-class facilities and networks that both connect their regional communities to the world, and provide valuable economic growth."
OAG’s Punctuality League is based on more than 54 million flight records using full-year data from 2016.
Top 10 low-cost carriers
1 Monarch Airlines 85.67%
2 GOL 84.63%
3 Transavia 83.98%
4 Jet2.com 82.64%
5 Germanwings 82.48%
6 Westjet 81.36%
7 Southwest 81.04%
8 Norwegian Air Shuttle 79.23%
9 Thai AirAsia 78.60%
10 Skymark Airlines 78.32%
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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