GATWICK Airport, the starting point for many a holiday hell story, has come off well in the Civil Aviation Authority’s latest report on airport punctuality.
Gatwick is outperforming rivals Stansted and Luton with flights arriving on time in the busy summer period, despite growing by 1m customers each year.
It is also getting very close to passing its great rival Heathrow for on-time performance.
Last summer half of Gatwick’s third quarter charter flights were within Civil Aviation Authority guidelines on meeting timetables.
This compares with a poor figure of just 41% for the previous summer.
By comparison, Stansted and Luton both dropped back to 37% and 50% respectively for on-time charter flights. These compared with 57% and 60% in 1997.
Gatwick said closer co-operation with airlines and air traffic control last year had paid dividends.
It set up a flights’ operations committee at the beginning of 1998 to ensure lengthy delays for passengers were not repeated last summer. This runs in parallel with the long-standing slot performance committee which can penalise airlines which fail to use slots responsibly.
Airline and ATC managers on the new committee met regularly with BAA to iron out potential problems, with the result aircraft were turned around faster and check-in times reduced.
Gatwick’s on-time charter performance last year was the highest it has been since the mid-1990s. Flights peaked at 53% on-time in the first quarter, but dropped back to 51% and then 50% for the next two quarters.
Its scheduled traffic performance was static at 66% on time – just two percentage points below Heathrow, which dropped to 68% from 72% in summer 1997.
BAA’s ‘third’ London airport fared badly compared with its bigger sister.
Gatwick handled 29m passengers last year and achieved improved results, but Stansted – with 7m customers this financial year – suffered. A Stansted spokeswoman said as just 20% of the airport’s business was charter traffic a small number of long delays had distorted the figures.
“If the odd charter flight was badly delayed it came across as if it was all of them,” she said.
The airport dismissed claims that record annual growth of 25 % at the airport – due to the rise in low-cost airline traffic from Ryanair and Go and from KLM UK – was affecting performance. However, scheduled results were also disappointing at Stansted, which dropped from 76% on-time in 1997 to 57% last year.
The airport said this was mainly due to summer delays for KLM UK flights serving Amsterdam caused by chronic congestion at Schipholairport.
The spokeswoman said matters should improve this summer because Stansted is introducing a fully co-ordinated slot application system for the first time as the airport is hitting its capacity in peak times.
Stansted is also planning to double capacity in its main terminal and at satellite facilities to 15m by 2008 to meet predicted demand.
Luton blamed outside factors for its poor 1998 charter performance, citing bad weather and late in-bound aircraft from European airports.
It also said rapid growth during the year had not helped performance. In 1997/98 it handled 3.4m passengers and this financial year the figure will top 4.3m.
It also has a programme to improve passenger service with an investment of ú170m in a new terminal and aircraft infrastructure.
Monarch managing director Danny Bernstein was unsurprised his Luton base and Stansted had more delays last year. He said: “The activity at Luton is double what it was two years ago due to EasyJet and Debonair, while Stansted is the fastest growing BAA airport.”
At Gatwick, Bernstein said greater emphasis with on-time performance, improved flight planning and use of back-up aircraft had led to reduced delays.
An EasyJet spokesman said the low-cost airline – which operates more than half of Luton flights – had improved performance last year due to receiving more aircraft.
However, he said building work at Luton and delays at Schiphol had hit flights.