British Airways ranked near the bottom of the European league table for punctuality and bag delays this summer.
Fewer than three out of five BA flights were on time – judged as within 15 minutes of scheduled arrival – and 30 BA passengers in every 1,000 experienced baggage delays.
Of the leading carriers, only Alitalia ranked anywhere near as bad, and only the much smaller TAP Portugal was worse on both counts.
The figures, compiled by the Association of European Airlines for the period from July to September, placed BA 26th out of 28 carriers for punctuality and 24th out of 25 for delays to baggage.
The airline misplaced almost twice as many bags as Lufthansa and three times as many as Swiss. Less than 59% of BA flights were on time, compared with 84% at Lufthansa, 83% at Air France,
86% at KLM, 76% at Iberia and 71% at Alitalia.
BA suffered inordinately from the well-publicised delays at Heathrow, where so many of its flights originate. Chief executive Willie Walsh warned last week that over-capacity at the airport would continue to dog the carrier’s performance.
However, Walsh believes BA’s move to Heathrow’s Terminal 5 in March will put an end to baggage delays and substantially improve the carrier’s punctuality.