New figures from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) have painted a mixed picture of punctuality at the UK’s airports.
London City and Heathrow airports saw the lowest number of aircraft arriving and departing on-time in the first quarter of 2008, with 44 per cent of flights at the UK’s busiest hub enduring delays.
But at the same time, the capital’s other three main facilities – Luton, Gatwick and Stansted – all saw improved service reliability when compared with last year, as did Birmingham Airport.
Overall, punctuality performance across the ten airports monitored by the CAA fell by four points to 68 per cent.
At London City, where the proportion of flights landing and leaving on-time slumped to just 58 per cent, a spokesperson told ABTN that high passenger numbers and poor weather were primarily to blame.
“We are confident it will get better,” the spokesperson asserted, noting that the airport introduced four new aircraft stands last month.
Airport regulator BAA also cited similar justifications for disappointing performance at Heathrow, with a spokesman saying the airport runways are “operating at 100 per cent of capacity, which means small events such as adverse weather, can cause major delays and disruption.”
He added: “Other airports, which have plenty of spare runway capacity do not suffer these problems.”
The average delay endured by a passenger passing through one of the UK’s main airports now stands at 18 minutes, up from 16 minutes during the same period last year.
