Virgin Atlantic ‘second most punctual airline’ in the UK in 2023 – with Wizz Air the worst

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• BJ says:

  23 Jun23 June 05:37

  Surely the title should have been Emerald and Wizz.

  Where is Finnair? This was of most interest to me given the shirt MCT in Helsinki.

  Also of note is that the difference between the best and the worst isn’t that great in practical terms for the mainly point to point airlines, or even fir the hub and spoke airlines provided customers are
  sensible and realistic about booking connection flights.

• HampshireHog says:

  23 Jun23 June 05:58

  Is this the average time keeping of all flights or just the average delay of those delayed?

  • Rob says:

    23 Jun23 June 09:05

    Not clear in the press release but having seen the CAA data I believe it is all flights.

• TimM says:

  23 Jun23 June 06:02

  The word “delay” has to be interpreted. It is a matter of policy as to what time the published departure and arrival times are compared to the actual intended times. Once upon a time the actual departure time could be calculated from the scheduled arrival time minus the expected flight time but these days, airlines are adding 20-30% to the flight time so that they almost always arrive ‘on time’ or ‘early’.

  I imagine the average figures quoted are very misleading as they are likely to comprise the vast majority of flights arriving ‘on time’, according to published flight arrival times, but skewed by the outlying serious delays.

  I know there is a modern tendency to rearrange an airline’s entire fleet, so far as is possible, to minimise, or eliminate, any compensation payments due. Especially short haul, if one plane is seriously delayed, for whatever reason, the ensuing short-notice rearrangement can make a lot more planes a little late, but not enough for compensation to be paid.

  • The Savage Squirrel says:

    23 Jun23 June 08:04

    I hadn’t thought about this before. Given that a 20-30 minute delay should be trivial for flyers (unless anyone has made foolish plans) while a 5 hour delay is not, this probably means that the system is working to the overall benefit of everyone?

• HampshireHog says:

  23 Jun23 June 06:04

  So how are Virgin the second most UK punctual airline then? Presumably as the list cuts off at 13 mins there are other airlines with 12 mins or less or even on time?

  • John G says:

    23 Jun23 June 08:06

    That’s what I thought too. This is a list of the least punctual airlines. There are lots of airlines I can think of not mentioned, presumably because they are more punctual. So surely Emerald are the least worst rather than the most punctual!

  • Rob says:

    23 Jun23 June 09:04

    No

• Ryan says:

  23 Jun23 June 06:40

  Queue everyone complaining that mean isn’t the best average to use for a wide dataset such as this, median would be better

  • Geoff says:

    23 Jun23 June 08:00

    Cue everyone saying that it should be cue not queue

• BJ says:

  23 Jun23 June 07:25

  On subject of delays I just read on the news a power cut at Manchester causing many cancellations and severe delays today.

• The Savage Squirrel says:

  23 Jun23 June 07:59

  Typo: worst, not worse

• Michael says:

  23 Jun23 June 08:24

  I’m genuinely surprised by Emerald being most punctual. That really wouldn’t be the perception of the average flyer across the Irish Sea.

  Emerald U.K. operates out of Belfast City with a fleet of ATRs which have had lots of tech problems. Their tight scheduling means one delay causes cascading delays, cancellations and sometimes diversions when the last arrival into BHD misses the curfew.

  Meanwhile at DUB Emerald (Ireland) have a coaching operation in an increasingly congested airport. I suppose the saving grace of the coaching gates is that it keeps them out of some of the most congested alleyways in DUB, but the passenger perception isn’t always of a punctual arrival even though the plane may have arrived on stand on time.

  I would expect Virgin to perform well, running long haul only with well padded schedules (mostly TATL with the jet stream helping) and long turnarounds at LHR.

  • Throwawayname says:

    23 Jun23 June 09:15

    Emerald have very short flights though, so the proportion of time between scheduled departure and arrival that corresponds to schedule padding might well be significantly higher than that of other airlines (certainly will be much higher than Virgin’s).

  • Nick says:

    23 Jun23 June 10:44

    Coaching arrivals can be quicker than jetbridge ones, if (and it’s a big if!) everything is well planned and lined up ready. If you arrive on a remote stand at VIE, for example, high-capacity buses arrive as the aircraft does, and you’ll be in arrivals just as quickly as they drop you right by passport control with no walking required. It’s often the same at Dublin, given the length of walking required from many contact stands.

  • ADS says:

    23 Jun23 June 12:13

    I too was surprised about Emerald!

    Dublin departures are presumably NOT included – as this report is using UK CAA data

    I guess Emerald benefit from not serving Heathrow or Gatwick airports

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