Airports are stressful places. The only thing worse than (typically) being forced to wake up at an ungodly hour, (typically) stressing out about all the security and boarding rules and (typically) spending loads of time queuing is when your flight is delayed or cancelled.
If you were wondering which UK airports have recently been, statistically speaking, worst for delays, here’s just the thing. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has released its data for 2024 showing which British airports had the longest average flight delays.
Top (or bottom) of the pile was London Gatwick, with an average flight delay of 23.6 minutes in 2024. While the West Sussex airport improved on its 2023 showing (in which it saw an average delay of 27 mins), Gatwick was most-delayed by quite some margin.
Gatwick blamed air traffic control (ATC) staff shortages across continental Europe for last year’s disruption. Concerning how it would reduce delays, a spokesperson told BBC News:
‘Together with our airlines, we’ve put in place a robust plan... to improve on-time performance further in 2025.’ You can read more about Gatwick being named the UK’s worst airport for delays on Time Out London here.
Second-worst for delays was another London airport, Stansted. The Essex hub had an average delay of 20 minutes. In third was Manchester, also with delays of 20 minutes.
Down the other end of the table, coming up least delayed was Belfast, with average set-backs of just 12 mins. This marks the second year in a row that the Northern Irish capital has been named the UK’s most punctual airport. We didn’t need even more reasons to visit Belfast, but there’s another.
The 10 worst UK airports for delays in 2024
Here are the 10 British airports with the highest average flight delays (including the average delay), according to last year’s CAA data.
- London Gatwick – 23.6 minutes
- London Stansted – 20.3 minutes
- Manchester – 20.3 minutes
- Southend – 20 minutes
- Birmingham – 19.9 minutes
- Bournemouth – 18.9 minutes
- Bristol – 18.8 minutes
- Cardiff – 18.6 minutes
- Luton – 18.6 minutes
- London Heathrow – 18 minutes
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