Stansted: Passengers Suffer Fewer Delays

Holiday flight passengers faced fewer delays at Stansted Airport last summer, according to the CAA.

A total of 73% of charter flights were on time at 10 major UK airports in July-September 2011 - a 10% improvement on the same period in 2010, the Civil Aviation Authority said.

The biggest increases in on-time scheduled flight performance in summer this year were seen at Stansted (up 10%) Gatwick (up 13%) and Luton (up 11%).

The average delay to charter flights last summer was 22 minutes, an improvement on the 30-minute figure in summer 2010.

The statistics covered flights in and out of the Essex terminal as well as Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, London City, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow airports.

The planes-on-time figure was probably boosted in summer 2011 by the fact that there were 4.1% fewer charter flights than in summer 2010.

However, scheduled flight punctuality at the 10 airports improved even though there were 0.4% more scheduled flights in summer 2011 than in summer 2010.

A total of 79% of scheduled flights were on time in July-September 2011 compared with only 72% in July-September last year.

The average schedule flight delay fell from 16 minutes in summer 2010 to just 12 minutes in summer 2011.

Among the 75 scheduled and charter destinations with the most passengers in the third quarter of 2011, flights to and from Larnaca in Cyprus had the worst on-time performance (61%), while the Canadian city of Toronto had the highest average delay - of 23 minutes.