According toOAGone of the world leaders in the analysis of flight frequencies and airline networks, the flight punctuality in Europe continues to deteriorate rapidly. The responsibility lies with airports more and more cluttered and weather conditions which are deteriorating as a result of global warming. As a result, airline schedules are increasingly disrupted by the growing frequency of typhoons, storms and other natural disasters.
According to OAG, the trends are not good, with average arrival delays at European airports in constant increase. In 2014, flights were less than three minutes late arriving at their destination. Today, they are more than six minutes late on average. On departure, while the delay is marginally higher in 2018 than in 2014, the average delay is 13 minutes. A significant figure when you consider that the average flight from a European airport is two hours and 23 minutes. In fact, 81% of European flights last less than three hours. On these short-haul flights, the delay is 12 minutes on departure and six minutes on return. This relatively "good" performance in terms of punctuality can be explained by the fact that more and more short-haul flights are operated by airlines that have a strong presence in Europe. low-costwhose business model is based on strict adherence to flight rates per aircraft. A practice also adopted by traditional airlines.
OAG points out that the longer the flight, the longer the delay on departure. On arrival, however, airlines generally manage to reduce their delays by 10 to 15 minutes. The average delay is therefore 16 minutes for a flight lasting between six and nine hours, and 17.5 minutes for a flight lasting more than nine hours. On arrival, however, the average delay is between three and four minutes.
In general, European airports are experiencing longer departure delays than arrival delays. According to the punctuality statistics published by OAG, the airports with the longest departure delays are LisbonLondon-Gatwick, Barcelona and Paris Orly and Paris CDG. At these hubs, departure delays fluctuate on average between 16 and 24 minutes - with Orly, for example, reaching 20 minutes and Roissy just over 15 minutes. Other poor performers include Dublin, Stockholm-Arlanda, Rome-Fiumicino and Vienna. Unfortunately, the situation is unlikely to change quickly, as there is too little investment in increasing airport handling capacity on the continent to have a marked effect. All that remains is for business travellers to be patient or to travel by train, where possible!
