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Summer security threat hit airline punctuality
Last August’s UK airport terrorist threat and the tightening of security measures led to a “sharp” decline in airline punctuality, according to new figures.
While the on-time record of charter airlines was unchanged in the key July-September quarter in 2006, scheduled carrier’s performance dropped from 71% to 63%.
The average delay rose from 16 minutes in 2005 to 20 minutes in 2006. The highest increases in average delays were at Luton and Stansted, with increases of 12 and nine minutes respectively, bringing their total average delay times to 27 and 20 minutes.
Luton and Stansted – bases for budget carriers easyJet and Ryanair – saw scheduled on-time performance fall by 20 percentage points and 17 percentage points respectively.
The figures from the Civil Aviation Authority showed that the proportion of scheduled flights operating on time fell at all 10 monitored airports, with the exception of Birmingham, where on-time performance increased by one percentage point.
“The figures were affected by the events of August 2006, when airport operations were disrupted in response to a terrorist threat, and the consequent changes to security arrangements,” the CAA said.
Charter flight punctuality increased at Manchester and Newcastle, and remained the same at Gatwick.
“Given the relative size of the combined charter market at Gatwick and Manchester, however, the overall proportion of on-time charter flights remained static at 66 per cent in Quarter 3 of 2006, as compared to Quarter 3 of 2005,” the CAA said.
“The average delay in the third quarter across all monitored charter flights fell from 31 minutes in the second quarter of 2005 to 29 minutes in the same period in 2006. Luton, Glasgow and Edinburgh were the only monitored airports that experienced increases in the levels of average delay.”
Among the top 75 scheduled and charter destinations, 20 scheduled routes had on-time performances of less than 60%. Amongst these, New York (both JFK and Newark airports), Los Angeles, Chicago and Nice all had average delays of 30 minutes or more.
by Phil Davies
Phil Davies
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