Sharp improvement in charter flight punctuality
The summer 2009 charter punctuality season saw something of a reversal in the general trend of increasing charter flight delays over the preceding few years, with a significant improvement in punctuality recorded across UK reporting airports.

While average delays in summer 2008 peaked at over 30 minutes, the average delay in summer 2009 was just 19 minutes, an almost 40% reduction and the best charter flight punctuality at UK airports on record since we began analysing statistics in 2001.

On-time performance reached 75% on average, a 14 percentage point improvement compared with summer 2008 and less than 8% of flights were delayed by over an hour, just over half the proportion affected by long delays during the summer 2008 season. Delays in excess of three hours also reduced by nearly half year-on-year.

Some of the improvement has arisen from new taxi time assumptions built into the data which came into force on 1st January 2009, and in general provided slightly more taxi time allowance at some airports as a result of the latest CAA estimates. While this means summer 2008 data is not directly comparable with summer 2009 data this adjustment cannot have accounted for the entire improvement in timekeeping and the airlines are still to be congratulated for putting on-time performance at the top of the agenda in achieving these results.

Thomson Airways secured first position for punctuality during the summer 2009 season for the second consecutive year, demonstrating a significant improvement in timekeeping compared with summer 2008. The airline recorded an average delay of 14 minutes and 80% on-time performance, compared with 24 minutes and 63% respectively for summer 2008.

Thomson was also the most punctual charter carrier at all but two of the eight UK reporting airports analysed during summer 2009.

Only around 1 in 20 Thomson charter flights was delayed by over an hour, a near 50% reduction compared with summer 2008, while only around 1 in 100 Thomson charter flights suffered an extensive delay of three hours or more.

Monarch Airlines followed as runner-up for the season, with a 50% reduction in average delay from 40 minutes in summer 2008 to 20 minutes in summer 2009, and close to 20 percentage points improvement in on-time performance from 54% to 73%. The airline slashed the proportion of flights operating over an hour late from over 16% in summer 2008 to less than 8% in summer 2009, and the proportion of flights suffering extensive delays also fell sharply from over 5% in 2008 to less than 2% in 2009.

At Birmingham, where Monarch was the most punctual charter airline during summer 2009, an average delay of just over 5 minutes and nearly 91% on-time performance was recorded, the best performance seen for any charter airline at an individual airport during the season.

Despite having the second highest on-time performance at 76%, Thomas Cook Airlines finished the season in third position with a close to 40% reduction in average delay from 35 minutes in summer 2008 to 21 minutes in summer 2009. A much higher proportion of delays in excess of 1 hour compared with the average for all charter flights during the season, at 1 in 10 flights, adversely affected the average delay for Thomas Cook charter flights.

Viking Airlines, a relative newcomer to the UK charter market in summer 2009, demonstrated the poorest punctuality during the summer 2009 season, with their average charter flight delayed by nearly 40 minutes, around double the average for all charter flights during the period. Less than half of all Viking flights operated on time and a high proportion, 1 in 6 flights, was delayed by over an hour - twice as many as the UK charter average.

The following table shows punctuality and average delay data for charter airlines operating at UK reporting airports during the summer 2009 season over the period 1st April 2009 to 31st October 2009 inclusive.

The menus on the right link to pages showing more detailed punctuality statistics for the summer 2009 season for charter flights at UK reporting airports. Airline data, for example, is available down to reporting airport level.

You can view specific data for several UK charter airlines, or view charter airline delays at airport level, by selecting a page from the appropriate menu to the right.