UK regional airline, Eastern Airways continues to be Birmingham and Newcastle airports’ most punctual scheduled airline after again being rated the number one performer.

The independent carrier is on the top spot at Birmingham and Newcastle after being named the number one on-time airline from January to June 2008, ahead of airlines including KLM, British Airways, Lufthansa, Brussels Airlines, easyJet and Ryanair. 

The Civil Aviation Authority’s latest punctuality statistics analysed by on-line aviation analysts, Flightontime.info, revealed that almost 94% and 89% of Eastern Airways flights departed from Birmingham and Newcastle within 15 minutes respectively.  If any delays were experienced, they averaged just 4 minutes at Birmingham and 6½ minutes at Newcastle during the period of January to June 2008. 

For two years, Eastern Airways was named the number one airline for punctuality at both Birmingham and Newcastle and is on target for a third full year at both airports.

Chris Holliday, Eastern Airways’ chief operating officer, said: “Our ground staff, engineers and air crews know how important on-time departures are to business travellers and, again they have been extremely focused on maintaining our high standards of punctuality.  We always aim to provide the best service possible to our customers and remain committed to being a leading airline for on-time performance in the UK.”

Eastern Airways has been providing high frequency scheduled services from Birmingham to Newcastle and the Isle of Man for over five years.  Since 2003 the airline has been operating from Newcastle, flying to Birmingham, Cardiff, Southampton, Aberdeen, Isle of Man and Stavanger in Norway.

Earlier this year the airline reached the number one punctuality position overall in the UK for the first three months of 2008 and was also recently nominated for a prestigious travel industry award with Buying Business Travel under the category “Best UK domestic airline for business”. 

Passengers travelling with Eastern Airways can check-in just 30 minutes before departure and are also offered a dedicated fast track security channels to help them swiftly pass through security searches at Birmingham and Newcastle.

Up to 800 flights a week are operated by Eastern Airways from 18 airports including Aberdeen, Angers Loire (France), Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Durham Tees Valley, East Midlands, Humberside, Isle of Man, Leeds Bradford, London Stansted, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Southampton, Stavanger (Norway), Stornoway and Wick.

Also this week, Eastern Airways announced that it will launch a new daily service (except Saturdays) from Aberdeen to Oslo from 12 January 2009 using a Saab 2000 aircraft.