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Airline punctuality deteriorates at Heathrow
Heathrow was the worst performing airport for airline punctuality in the first quarter of the year, according to new statistics.
Only 56% of flights at the London hub were on time, down nine percentage points on the same three months in 2007.
The figures cover the period of the disastrous Terminal 5 opening at the end of March.
London City airport also suffered a drop of 12 points to give just 58% of flights on time between January and March.
The overall performance of airlines using 10 UK airports in the Civil Aviation Authority survey fell by four points to 68%.
The average delay across all the scheduled flights monitored rose from 16 minutes in the first quarter of 2007 to 18 minutes.
Average delays declined at Gatwick, Luton, Birmingham, Stansted and Manchester, but increasing at Heathrow, London City, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Luton, Gatwick, Stansted and Birmingham all improved their scheduled punctuality performance in the first three months of the year.
At Luton, on-time performance increased by five percentage points to 76%, at Gatwick by four points to 72%, at Stansted by two points to 80% and at Birmingham by one point to 78%.
The proportion of on-time charter flights fell by three points to 62%.
Performance fell at all ten airports except for Stansted, where it increased by two percentage points, and Gatwick, where it remained constant, the CAA said.
Average charter delays rose from 27 minutes in the first quarter of 2007 to 28 minutes in the first quarter of 2008.
Stansted, Glasgow and Edinburgh all saw drops in their average delay.
by Phil Davies
Phil Davies
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