The Telegraph has revealed the airports, airlines, and routes with the best and worst records for cancellations and delays in 2024, offering valuable insights for travelers planning their trips and highlighting key areas where the aviation industry faced challenges.
According to telegraph.co.uk, the average delay in minutes, plus information on how different airlines performed. Scroll down for our analysis of 2024’s best and worst airports, airlines and routes. Enter your flight details into our tool to find out – based on last year’s performance – how likely a cancellation is for your journey
Cancellations
The best and worst airlines
Of the major airlines with regular flights departing from the UK, Jet2 had the lowest cancellation rate of them all: an admirable 33 flight cancellations across 54,074 departures from the UK – just 0.06 per cent. Ryanair also has an impressive record of one cancellation for every 607 flights (0.16 per cent). Others that performed well include Aegean, Qatar, Egypt Air, Etihad and Air Malta.
On the other end of the scale, British Airways did less well in this department, with one cancellation for every 44 flights (2.27 per cent), while Virgin suffered one cancellation for every 63 flights (1.59 per cent). EasyJet endured one cancellation for every 110 flights (0.9 per cent) and Wizz had a cancellation rate of one in every 133 flights (0.75 per cent). Eastern Airways and Aurigny were among the other airlines that struggled with cancellations in 2024 – unsurprisingly, considering they are primarily domestic airlines serving smaller coastal and island airports.
The best and worst routes
A significant number of routes had no cancellations whatsoever in 2024. To pick out a few of the routes with the highest density of flights and zero cancellations: Ryanair’s Stansted to Barcelona service (1,347 flights), Stansted to Bucharest (1,151 flights) and Luton to Dublin route (1,108) all had a clean record. EasyJet’s most popular route with zero cancellations was Luton to Geneva, while Jet2’s was Manchester to Tenerife.
Of the routes with more than 100 scheduled departures per year, Gatwick to Beijing with Air China was the worst performer, with 62 of the 139 flights cancelled (44 per cent). Southampton to Paris with Eastern Airways also struggled, with 34 of 136 flights cancelled (25 per cent).
The best and worst airports
You are almost guaranteed to sidestep a cancelled flight if departing from Bournemouth, which was one flight off having a clean slate in 2024 (the only cancelled service was an easyJet flight to Geneva). East Midlands (0.33 per cent of flights cancelled), Belfast International (0.42 per cent) and Liverpool (0.48 per cent) were the other regional airports with the lowest cancellation records. Luton (0.49 per cent) and Stansted (0.62 percent) were the best performing London airports.
On the other end of the performance rankings, Aberdeen Airport saw a whopping 573 of its 12,589 departures (4.55 per cent) cancelled last year – by far the worst record of any UK airport. This was due, quite possibly, to the weather conditions in Scotland and the fact that it serves smaller Scottish island airports. Exeter (3.76 per cent), Teesside (3.74 per cent) and the Isle of Man (3.72 per cent) struggled in this category. London City was the worst of the London airports for cancellations (3.04 per cent) while Heathrow and Gatwick had cancellation rates of 1.63 per cent and 1.4 per cent respectively.
Delays
The best and worst airlines
In aviation, if an aircraft takes off or lands within 15 minutes it is considered “on time”. Some of the major airlines with an average delay of 15 minutes or less include United Airlines, Finnair, Air France, Loganair and Delta. The best major airlines operating from the UK for delays were British Airways (an average delay of 16m 57s) and Virgin Atlantic (16m 58s).
Air India had a particularly poor record for delays. Across its 2,422 departures, the average delay per flight was 47 minutes. Qantas (39 minutes), Egypt Air (38 minutes) and Corendon (36 minutes) were among the other poor performers. Of the airlines operating the most flights from the UK, Wizz (24m 35s average delay) and Tui (23m 26s) were the worst for delays.
The best and worst routes
The departure with the lowest average delay in 2024 was Belfast International to Salzburg, which enjoyed an average delay of just 20 seconds after scheduled departure. Liverpool to Fuerteventura with Ryanair, Manchester to Salzburg (also Ryanair) and Newcastle to Keflavik (Jet2) were the other routes which enjoyed an average delay of less than one minute.
Of the major routes with an average of more than one flight per day, Liverpool to Belfast City with easyJet scored well (4m 28s), as did Aberdeen to Stavanger with Wideroe (4m 47s) and Heathrow to Beijing with Air China (5m 14s).
Some of the standout worst routes for delays were Manchester to Dubrovnik with Tui (average delay of 91m), Gatwick to Bangalore with Air India (average delay of 83m) and Heathrow to Perth with Qantas (average delay of 74m). Of the routes with the most regular flights, Heathrow to Mumbai with Air India performed particularly poorly, with an average delay of just shy of 1hr across 663 flights.
The best and worst airports
The most punctual airport in the United Kingdom is Belfast City (George Best), which had an average delay of just 11m 8s. Other airports that, on average, hit the 15m “on-time” window for punctuality in 2024 were Liverpool, East Midlands, Aberdeen, Belfast International and Glasgow.
The poorest performer for punctuality was Gatwick Airport. This will be in no small part due to its sheer quantity of departures to the Continent, which is frequently affected by air traffic control strikes and delays due to inclement weather, both across Europe and in the south of England. Birmingham, Southend, Stansted and Manchester were among the other airports with higher delay rates.
