Nearly a third of flights were more than 15 minutes late at 10 major UK airports in the final quarter of 2010 according to the latest CAA figures.
The bad weather experienced in the period saw 32% of scheduled flights were late at 10 airports being monitored by the UK aviation body. This compared to just 24% in the same period in 2009 and the picture was replicated across all the airports being monitored, the CAA said.
The average delay rose six minutes to 21 minutes for the quarter and the percentage of flights delayed at Heathrow, which saw widespread snow disruption hit 35%.
Iain Osborne, CAA group director for regulatory policy, said: “The worst performers were charter flights from Edinburgh and Manchester, with scheduled flights from Heathrow and Luton also performing badly.
“While some of the fall in punctuality can be explained by the terrible weather in November and December, that doesn’t explain it all. The CAA website contains a guide for passengers to use to check which airline has the best punctuality on their chosen route.”
The CAA reported on days affected by poor weather “about a third of the reduction in on-time performance and about a quarter of the increase in average delay is due to weather-related disruption. The remainder of the changes have therefore arisen due to other causes”.
Overall the number of scheduled flights monitored was down 4% and charter flights down 14% on the fourth quarter of 2009. Punctuality, defined as a service leaving or arriving early, or leaving or arriving up to 15 minutes late, was 68%, nine percentage points lower that in 2009.
Among the London airports, Luton and Heathrow Airports showed the largest drops in on-time performance and experienced the greatest increases in average delay. Luton’s on-time performance fell from 76% to 64% and Heathrow’s fell by ten percentage points to 65%. Average delay increased by eight minutes at Luton and by seven minutes at Heathrow.
Overall, on-time performance for scheduled flights at regional airports fell by seven percentage points and the average delay increased by six minutes in the fourth quarter of 2010 compared with the same period in 2009.
Newcastle Airport had the largest decline in on-time performance (82% to 71%) and increase in average delay (nine minutes) among regional airports.
The proportion of on-time charter flights fell by eight percentage points to 63%, compared with the same period of 2009. The average delay across all charter flights monitored in the fourth quarter of 2010 was 38 minutes, compared to 24 minutes in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Among the 75 destinations with the most passengers, Scheduled flights to and from Madrid recorded the worst on-time performance of 51% and had the highest average delay of 32 minutes.
Flights to and from Guernsey had the highest on-time performance (82%), and flights to and from Billund (Denmark) had the shortest average delay (14 minutes).