Cancellation rates at London’s two largest airports Heathrow and Gatwick have continued to fall in recent weeks, according to data from aviation specialist OAG.
Heathrow’s cancellation rate was only 0.34 per cent during the first week in August, compared with 2.17 per cent of flights being cancelled during the previous week.
The airport has moved to cap departing passenger numbers at 100,000 per day during the peak summer season causing British Airways to take short-haul flights temporarily off sale.
Meanwhile Gatwick’s cancellation rate in the first week of this month was even lower at just 0.12 per cent of flights. Gatwick has also capped the number of daily flights this summer in an attempt to reduce disruption to passengers using the airport.
The drop in cancellation rates is part of a trend across western Europe showing how capacity caps, which are also in place at other major hubs such as Amsterdam Schiphol and Frankfurt, have helped to reduce the number of flight cancellations compared with earlier in the summer.
During July, the cancellation rate of flights in Western Europe dropped from a high of 3.14 per cent in the second week of the month to 1.47 per cent by the final week of July, according to OAG’s figures.