An investigation has found the worst UK airport for flight delays in 2018 was London Stansted. At Stansted airport passengers were kept waiting on flights for an average of 25 minutes in 2018.
Stansted airport is the UK’s fourth busiest airport and the main airlines it uses are low-cost European airlines and Ryanair. The Essex airport has the poorest record of any UK airports in the recent years.
The best recorded performance was Belfast City, George Best, airport. They had an eight minute average delay the City Aviation Authority (CAA) revealed. Across all airports the average delay was 16 minutes.
Liverpool’s John Lennon airport was next, with an average delay of 10 minutes, followed by Doncaster Sheffield, Exeter and Bournemouth, which each recorded an average delay of 12 minutes.
Stansted have blamed “adverse weather and air traffic control issues” for being the worst for delays.
Which? Travel’s editor Rory Borland said:“It’s completely unacceptable for passengers to be regularly delayed by nearly half an hour.
“These delays aren’t just an inconvenience but can leave holidaymakers hundreds of pounds out of pocket because of missed connections, transfers and fines for picking up their hire car late.
“While compensation is available for delays of over three hours, airlines should stop passing the buck and make it easier for their passengers by finally introducing automatic compensation.”
A spokesman for London Stansted said: “Following a particularly challenging summer last year when adverse weather and air traffic control issues had a dramatic impact on airline on-time performance, Ryanair committed to a multimillion-pound investment in additional resourcing and equipment to support its ground operation at London Stansted.
“This investment has already helped deliver significant service improvements to flight punctuality.”
