THE most delayed flight routes from the UK have been revealed by Which? Travel and Thomas Cook’s service from London Stansted to Dalaman in Turkey has come out as the worst offender.
Meanwhile, Stansted came out as the airport where you’re mostly likely to catch a delayed flight.
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The consumer champions analysed Civil Aviation Authority’s flight data from 2018 and looked at journeys that were delayed by an hour or more.
Based on 10 million flights, they found that 24.1 per cent of Thomas Cook flights between Stansted and Dalaman were delayed by more than an hour – the most frequently delayed route.
The airline’s route from Stansted to Antalya in Turkey had a similar number of delays at 22.2 per cent, placing it at number three.
But Ryanair had more mentions in the list of most delayed routes than any other airline, with seven out of ten appearances.
At number two was Ryanair’s service from Liverpool John Lennon to Milan Malpensa, where 22.4 per cent of flights were delayed.
The airline’s routes also appeared on the list at positions four to nine.
Coming in at number ten was easyJet’s flights to Ibiza from Stansted, which was delayed 18.6 per cent of the time.
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Top 10 worst routes for flight delays:
- Stansted to Dalaman – Thomas Cook
- Liverpool John Lennon to Milan Malpensa – Ryanair
- Stansted to Antalya – Thomas Cook
- Stansted to Nice – Ryanair
- Stansted to Leipzig – Ryanair
- Bristol to Bergamo – Ryanair
- Stansted to Luxembourg – Ryanair
- Stansted to Billund – Ryanair
- Stansted to Bari Palese – Ryanair
- Stansted to Ibiza – easyJet
Stansted was the UK’s worst performing airport for delays in 2018, with more than 10 per cent of its flights departing an hour late, and an average delay of nearly half an hour.
Which? says that high-profile walkouts by Ryanair’s pilots and cabin crew certainly played their part in Stansted’s poor performance.
But even if Ryanair flights had been excluded from the analysis, Stansted would still have come out as the worst UK airport for punctuality.
While the airlines offered a range of explanations for their poor performance – including issues with weather, airspace or strikes – the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, commonly known as Eurocontrol, told the consumer champion the carriers themselves were most often to blame for delays.
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EasyJet and Thomas Cook both claimed factors beyond their control were to blame for the delays, including airspace, weather and strikes.
Thomas Cook said that it cancelled its flights less frequently than its rivals, and suggested that while passengers suffered long delays, it did at least get them to their destination.
A spokesperson said: “We always want to get our customers on holiday on time and have taken steps to improve punctuality this year, including operating more reserve aircraft to help get flights back on time quickly if delays happen.”
Ryanair pointed to the punctuality statistics it publishes on its own website, which show majority of flights are on time factoring in Air Traffic Control issues.
Stansted Airport said it had posted significantly improved results in the first quarter of 2019, in part because Ryanair had “committed to a multi-million pound investment in additional resourcing and equipment to support ground operation.”
Sun Online Travel previously revealed why flights now take longer than they did in the 1990s.
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