The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) today announced its latest punctuality statistics for UK airlines.
In the third quarter of 2006, there was a marked decline in punctuality compared to the same period in 2005, although the figure was dramatically affected by the terrorist threat last summer.
From July to September, the overall on-time performance (defined as up to 15 minutes late) of scheduled airlines at Britain’s major airports fell by 8 per cent, from 71 to 63 per cent.
Luton and Stansted were the worst affected, with punctuality falling by 20 per cent and 17 per cent respectively, and the average delay across all flights monitored rose from 16 minutes to 20 minutes.
There was better news at certain regional airports, however. At Birmingham, on-time performance increased by one per cent, and at Manchester and Newcastle the punctuality of charter flights also saw a slight improvement.
Over the three month period, flights to the US were the worst affected – understandable, considering that the August terror scare threatened flights to the US. New York, Los Angeles and Chicago all had average delays of 30 minutes or more.
Flights to other destinations did not suffer such significant delays.
