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Flight punctuality drops at UK airports
Scheduled and charter airlines at UK airports were less punctual in the fourth quarter of 2006 compared with the previous year, according to figures released today by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
The average delay for scheduled flights rose from 15 to 18 minutes and from 23 to 29 minutes respectively for charter airlines.
But the period was impacted by heavy fog in December, causing
disruption at both London and regional airports.
Delays between December 18 and 23, when the fog was at its worst, contributed to about half of the fall in punctuality for scheduled airlines, and all of the decline for charter flights.
In the three month period, the overall on-time performance (defined as early to 15 minutes late) of scheduled airlines at the 10 UK airports monitored fell by five percentage points, from 73% to 68%.
The biggest reductions were at London City and Heathrow, which fell by nine and seven percentage points respectively.
Only Newcastle managed to reduce average delays, by one minute.
The highest increases in average delays were at Heathrow and London City, with increases of five and four minutes, bringing average delays to 22 and 20 minutes respectively.
Meanwhile, the punctuality of charter flights increased at Newcastle, Birmingham and Edinburgh, but fell at the other seven monitored airports.
The largest fall was at Stansted where on-time performance was 10 percentage points lower, falling from 75% in 2005 to 65% in 2006.
Overall, there was a slight decrease in the punctuality of charter services, with 69% of flights on time in the fourth quarter of 2005 falling to 67% in 2006.
The largest increase in average delays was at Gatwick, from 26 minutes to 35 minutes. Edinburgh was the only airport to show a reduction (of one minute) in average delay.
If the fog is excluded from the analysis, the proportion of scheduled flights operating on time fell by 3 percentage points to 70% in the fourth quarter of 2006 and average delays rose by one minute to 16 minutes.
Similarly, without the bad weather, the average delay of charter flights rose by three minutes to 26 minutes and the punctuality was the same as in quarter four of 2005, 69%.
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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