On a flight you can handle a bit of turbulence, or being seated next to a loud snorer. You’re fine to pay £25 for a mediocre burger and squeeze your way into the tiny toilet, but if there’s one thing that you want the most from a flight, it’s to get where you’re going in a timely fashion.
Flights being delayed can throw an entire trip off its axis. It can make you miss connections, or can trap you inside the ever-grey gate for hours longer than is necessary, and some airlines are worse than others when it comes to being on time.
Cirium, an aviation analytics company, is clued up on who is and isn’t reliable when it comes to air travel. Cirium has created an ‘On-Time Performance Review’ for 2024, which does exactly what it says on the tin: comparing airlines and airports across the world and awarding those who were the best at turning up on time. And, as it turns out, no British companies did exceptionally well at all.
Of the top 10 airlines in Europe, none were based in the UK. Needless to say, we also didn’t rank globally. On top of that, we didn’t have a single airport of any size feature in the report, meaning that across four different categories (small, medium, large, and overall), we couldn’t wiggle our way into a single spot on the podium. That’s not a great sign.
British Airways (BA), RyanAir, and easyJet, three British-based providers, made it onto the report on the list for ‘most cancellations’ in Europe. BA and easyJet even made the top three in this category, with 7,117 and 5,783 cancelled flights to their respective names in 2024.
Cirium’s report doesn’t go past the top 20 for airports and top 10 for carriers, so we don’t know exactly where UK air carriers and hubs would come overall. You can find out more on the Cirium website here.
Eyes on the skies
There’s loads more where that came from. Another regional UK airport just got five new cheap holiday routes, this small English airport is launching new daily flights to Amsterdam and BA just announced a loyalty programme, although some of the carrier’s short haul flights have seemingly been cancelled. See here for the full list of exciting new flights launching from UK airports this winter.
The Great Western Railway Getaway sale starts this week: how to get half-price train tickets in the UK.
Plus: Why are plans for a £3.5 billion ‘British Disneyland’ near London so controversial?
Stay in the loop: sign up to our free Time Out UK newsletter for the latest UK news and the best stuff happening across the country.