Punctuality drops at Heathrow and London City

The overall punctuality of scheduled airlines from the UK improved slightly in the last quarter of 2007, compared with the same period in 2006.

But at Heathrow and London City the punctuality of scheduled flights dropped, particularly so at London City.

According to figures released today by the Civil Aviation Authority, the overall on-time performance of scheduled airlines across the 10 UK airports monitored rose by one percentage point to 69% in October to December 2007.

But at Heathrow the proportion of scheduled flights operating on time fell by one percentage point to 60%.

At London City it fell by 10 percentage points to 58%.

On-time performance is defined as any flight which arrives or departs early or up to 15 minutes late.

The average delay in the fourth quarter across all the scheduled flights monitored decreased from 18 minutes in the last quarter of 2006 to 17 minutes in 2007.

Average delay decreased at all monitored airports, with the exception of London City where the average delay increased by five minutes to 20 minutes.

Campaigners for a third runway at Heathrow jumped on today’s CAA figures to argue their case, pointing out that the average delay on an arriving flight at Heathrow is now 20 minutes, a 25% increase from 2003.

“In comparison, average delays at Amsterdam and Paris Charles de Gaulle are less than 15 minutes, despite having more flights than Heathrow,” said a statement.

Lord Soley, Future Heathrow’s campaign director said: “Heathrow’s two runways are currently operating at 99% of their permitted capacity and this is leading to unnecessary delays for passengers

“Both Amsterdam and Paris have more flights than Heathrow but fewer delays thanks to the spare capacity provided by their extra runways.

“These figures show that additional capacity at Heathrow is needed now, if the UK is to maintain its competitive edge.”

Meanwhile, among charter operations, the proportion of on-time charter flights fell by one percentage point to 66%, compared with 67% in the same period the year before.

At all monitored airports performance fell except for Luton where it improved three percentage points.

The average delay in the fourth quarter across all the charter flights monitored decreased from 29 minutes in the last quarter of 2006 to 26 minutes in the last quarter of 2007.

The average delay increased at Stansted and Newcastle by two minutes and at Birmingham by one minute, and at Glasgow remained the same. At all other airports, the average delay decreased.

Among the 75 scheduled and charter destinations with the most passengers, the scheduled routes to Lisbon, Dubai, Istanbul, Rome (Fiumicino) and Los Angeles International had on-time performances of less than 55 per cent.

Lisbon, Malta, New York JFK and Los Angeles International all had average delays of 25 minutes or more.

Tenerife (Sur Reina) was the only charter destination among the top 75. It attained an on-time performance of 68 per cent and an average delay of 22 minutes.

Lisbon had both the lowest on-time performance and the longest average delay amongst the top 75 destinations, with an on-time performance of 49 per cent and an average delay of 29 minutes.

Leeds Bradford had both the highest on-time performance (84 per cent) and shortest average delay (8 minutes) amongst the top 75 destinations.

By Bev Fearis