Two UK airlines named as among the world’s worst

Monarch is one of the world’s worst airlines, closely followed by Ryanair, according to a new report by flight delay compensation firm AirHelp.

It claimed that Monarch was the fourth worst airline in the world after Bulgaria Air, Czech carrier SmartWings and Tunisair.

Ryanair was the fifth worst, followed by Egytair, China Eastern, Pakistan International, Gulf Air and Air China.

AirHelp ranked the airlines according to a combination of their on-time performance, quality and service according to their Skytrax rating, and their efficiency in handling compensation claims.

It claimed to have given equal weight to all three factors.

British Airways was named as the seventh best airline in the world, although the survey was completed in March, before the airline’s recent computer failure that grounded its flights worldwide.

Virgin Atlantic came eighth followed by Aer Lingus. Singapore Airlines, Etihad and Qatar made up the top three in the world.

The UK has some of the worst airports in the world, according to AirHelp. It ranked Gatwick and Manchester as the second and third worst, behind Kuwait, while Edinburgh was the fifth, after Newark Liberty.

Assessing a combination of an airport’s on-time performance, quality and service as rated by Skytrax and analysis on social media, it found that Singapore’s Changi was the best airport in the world, followed by Munich and Hong Kong.

A Gatwick spokesman responded to the survey saying: "Gatwick recognises the inconvenience that delays cause to our passengers and we will continue to do everything possible to prevent them from occurring.

"However over recent years repeated strike action on the continent and heavily congested airspace above parts of Europe and London, have led to a significant increase in the number of delays caused by wider air traffic control issues outside Gatwick’s control. Gatwick has more flights to Europe than any UK airport and is impacted disproportionately by events on the continent.

"Gatwick and our airlines have implemented a wide range of measures to improve on-time performance in recent years, however the resulting improvements to punctuality have been overwhelmed by the scale of wider UK and European airspace issues.

"We will continue to make improvements and invest in new infrastructure to support punctuality, but we also call on UK and European authorities to take urgent steps to limit the impact of industrial disputes on our passengers, and to accelerate plans to increase the efficiency of UK and European airspace.

"Surveys conducted amongst real passengers travelling through Gatwick currently show record levels of satisfaction and advocacy, with other third party passenger surveys also telling a different story and rating Gatwick’s service levels highly."