London City and Heathrow were the UK airports with the lowest number of aircraft arriving and departing on time in the first quarter of 2008.
Figures released by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) show that only 56% of flights at Heathrow were on schedule (defined as within 15min either side of stated time), down nine percentage points compared with the same three months last year.
London City”s performance plummeted more sharply still ” by 12 percentage points ” as 58% of aircraft landed and left on time.
”We were at capacity during this period but that”s exactly why we introduced four new aircraft stands on 6 May which have reduced some of the problems on ground,” a City airport spokeswoman told ABTN. ”We are confident it will get better. It”s also important to remember there was period of quite bad weather ” with lots of fog in the Docklands - so that affected flights which couldn”t land or take off.”
On Monday, London City opened its enlarged departures lounge with 250 extra seats, a new bar, WHSmith newsagent, and extended Duty Free shop. Wi-Fi will ”likely be available at the end of July,” said the spokeswoman. ”[The facilities] are working very well, and have eased congestion within the departure lounge.”
A spokesman for airport operator BAA ” which runs Heathrow, among others - said: "The CAA's figures are the latest evidence of the problems caused by a lack of capacity at Heathrow Airport. Its two runways are operating at 100% of capacity, which means small events such as adverse weather, can cause major delays and disruption.
”Other airports, which have plenty of spare runway capacity do not suffer these problems."
Overall performance of scheduled services at the ten airports monitored by the CAA fell by four percentage points to 68%. Pulling up the average were Luton, which jumped five points (76%), Gatwick four (72%), Stansted two (80%) and Birmingham one (78%).
The average delay was longer this year ” 18mins compared to 16mins ” and among the 75 busiest routes, scheduled services to Dubai, Istanbul and Helsinki had on-time records of less than 50%, with the first two suffering average delays of more than half an hour per flight.
Those to Guernsey were the most reliable with 86% on time, and the shortest average delay was at Shannon (nine minutes).