Airlines with the worst punctuality records are revealed
VUELING has the longest delays of any major operator flying out of Cardiff Airport, a new study has revealed.
Researchers have looked at the delays affecting hundreds of thousands of flights taking off from UK airports every year.
Those figures were then broken down by airport and operator to compile a local “league of shame”.
Vueling had the worst record of any company to see more than 500 flights take off from Cardiff between January 2017 and March this year – the latest figures available.
Its 1,319 departures from the Welsh capital were delayed by an average of 18.3 minutes over that period.
Nearly a third of all Vueling flights out of Cardiff (30%) were delayed by at least 15 minutes, the analysis shows.
The company’s performance has been getting somewhat better in recent months.
In 2017, Vueling’s flights out of Cardiff were delayed by an average of 15.3 minutes. That rose to 21.5 minutes in 2018, but dropped to 18.1 minutes for the first three months of this year.
Thomas Cook Airlines had the second worst record for flights out of Cardiff, with an average delay of 17.9 minutes over the 27-month period.
Eastern Airways had an average delay of 12.8 minutes, and Flybe 11.7 minutes.
KLM and Tui Airways tied for the best performance. Tui’s 2,165 flights out of Cardiff, and the 2,303 run by KLM, both had an average delay of 10 minutes.
The analysis only includes airlines which saw at least 500 departures from Cardiff in total during the period, and which operated at least one flight between January and March this year.
The average delay for all flights from all UK airports was 14.5 minutes.
It rose from 13.8 minutes for 2017, 15.9 minutes for 2018, and 11.3 minutes for the first quarter of 2019. That’s good news - but could be partly explained by the fact the figures for this year don’t include the summer holiday rush, which tends to push up delays at the airport.
Stansted had the longest average delays for any airport, at 19.2 minutes. Birmingham (18.2 minutes), Luton (17.4 minutes) and Gatwick (16.7 minutes) were next.
Belfast City Airport had the best record, with average delays of just 8.4 minutes. Liverpool (9.0 minutes) and Bournemouth (10.6 minutes) were next.
In general, smaller airports which cover more domestic and short-haul destinations tend to have lower average delays.
Looking at flights out of all UK airports, Vueling had the worst record of any airline with more than 5,000 total departures. The carrier had an average delay of 24.2 minutes.
It was followed by Thomas Cook (21.0 minutes), Norwegian Air (20.5 minutes), Wizz Air (20.5 minutes) and Air Portugal (19.9 minutes). SAS (9.2 minutes), Cathay Pacific (9.3 minutes) and Delta Airlines (9.6 minutes) had the best records for all flights out of UK airports.