The punctuality of scheduled flights improved in the third quarter of 2008, compared with the same period in 2007, whilst the punctuality of charter flights worsened, according to figures released today by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Between July and September 2008, the overall on-time performance (defined as early to 15 minutes late) of scheduled flights at the ten UK airports monitored increased by four percentage points to 70 per cent.

Heathrow and Gatwick airports improved their scheduled on-time performance by six percentage points in the third quarter of 2008 compared with 2007. Stansted and London City airports’ scheduled on-time performance increased by five percentage points. At Luton, 64 per cent of flights were on time during the third quarter of 2008, representing a decline of four percentage points over the same period in 2007. Overall, on-time performance of scheduled services at the London airports monitored increased by five percentage points to 68 per cent.

At Manchester, on-time performance was unchanged at 74 per cent, whilst at Edinburgh it improved by ten percentage points to 77 per cent, and at Glasgow by six percentage points to 76 per cent. Overall, on-time performance of scheduled services at the regional airports monitored increased by four percentage points to 76 per cent.

The average delay across all the scheduled flights monitored declined by two minutes in the third quarter of 2008 to 17 minutes. Average delays decreased at Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, London City, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle, but increased by three minutes at Luton to 20 minutes in the third quarter of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007.

Charter Flights
Overall, the proportion of on-time charter flights fell by seven percentage points in the third quarter of 2008 to 59 per cent, compared with 66 per cent in the same period the year before. Gatwick, the airport with the biggest charter operation, saw on-time performance decline to 55 per cent in the latest quarter from 65 per cent a year ago.

The average delay across all charter flights monitored increased from 29 minutes in the third quarter of 2007 to 32 minutes in the third quarter of 2008. Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, Birmingham and Glasgow all saw increases in their average charter delay.

Among the 75 scheduled and charter destinations handling the largest number of passengers in quarter three of 2008, Athens recorded the worst on-time performance, with 52 per cent. Toronto had the highest average delay, of 29 minutes, for scheduled destinations. Bodrum (Milas) was the charter destination with the worst performance. It attained an on-time performance of 55 per cent and an average delay of 35 minutes.

Rotterdam had the highest on-time performance (85 per cent) and the shortest average delay (eight minutes) amongst the top 75 scheduled and charter destinations.