Monarch Airlines has hit back at a report on flight delays last summer that placed it bottom of a league table for punctuality among UK charter carriers.
As reported in last week’s Travel Weekly, the study by the Air Transport Users Council (.pdf) concluded almost 17% of Monarch charter flights suffered delays of one hour or more and put the average delay for its UK departures at 41 minutes.
The average delay to flights operated by the big four ranged from 14 to 24 minutes.
Monarch pointed out charters comprise less than half its business and that it operates primarily to medium and long-haul destinations.
In a statement, it said: “Splitting charter and scheduled flights does not give an accurate comparison with other airlines in the league table, whose short-haul flights operate predominantly as charter services.
“Punctuality on our scheduled flights for summer 2006 saw an average delay of 14.9 minutes, with 6.7% of flights delayed over one hour.”
According to Monarch, charters to the US suffered more delays than most because of heightened airport security.