Best & Worst UK Flight Routes for Delays

Based on 5,556,428 scheduled flights across 579 international routes from UK airports.

Most punctual route

London Heathrow → Moscow Sheremetyevo

89.3% on time · 5.9 min avg delay

Most delayed route

London Gatwick → Chania

34.9% on time · 40.6 min avg delay

Top 25 most punctual routes

#	Route	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Flights
1	London Heathrow → Moscow Sheremetyevo	89.3%	5.9 min	0.5%	4,045
2	London Heathrow → Cork	84.4%	7.7 min	0.8%	13,790
3	London Heathrow → Raleigh	84%	16.7 min	1.0%	3,239
4	East Midlands → Alicante	83.7%	10 min	0.1%	9,454
5	Aberdeen → Stavanger	83.6%	6.8 min	4.7%	9,727
6	Glasgow → Faro	83.5%	8.8 min	0.6%	4,006
7	London Heathrow → Bogota	83.5%	27 min	0.4%	3,476
8	Glasgow → Tenerife Surreina Sofia	83.4%	9.3 min	0.2%	5,386
9	Belfast International → Tenerife Surreina Sofia	82.6%	10.1 min	0.1%	4,071
10	Newcastle → Faro	82.6%	9.4 min	0.1%	4,353
11	East Midlands → Faro	82.5%	9.5 min	0.1%	6,369
12	East Midlands → Tenerife Surreina Sofia	82.3%	10.1 min	0.0%	7,264
13	Aberdeen → Bergen	82%	8.1 min	5.2%	5,802
14	East Midlands → Malaga	81.8%	10.5 min	0.1%	7,237
15	East Midlands → Arrecife	81.7%	10.6 min	0.1%	5,035
16	Liverpool → Geneva	81.5%	10.9 min	0.2%	3,016
17	Liverpool → Tenerife Surreina Sofia	81.5%	10.9 min	0.3%	4,809
18	Liverpool → Faro	81.4%	11.5 min	0.6%	6,247
19	Manchester → Keflavik	81.4%	14.4 min	1.4%	6,110
20	London Heathrow → Minneapolis-st Paul	81.3%	13.6 min	1.0%	3,428
21	Leeds Bradford → Faro	81.2%	12.5 min	0.5%	5,827
22	Liverpool → Malaga	81%	11 min	0.4%	8,017
23	Liverpool → Amsterdam	80.9%	11.9 min	0.8%	5,166
24	London Heathrow → Berlin Tegel	80.8%	9.6 min	1.3%	6,120
25	London Gatwick → Shanghai Pu Dong	80.6%	11.1 min	0.5%	4,811

Bottom 25 — the worst offenders

#	Route	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Flights
1	London Gatwick → Chania	34.9%	40.6 min	1.3%	3,676
2	Manchester → Rhodes	35.4%	39.4 min	0.8%	4,832
3	London Gatwick → Rhodes	38.1%	37.4 min	1.2%	6,646
4	London Gatwick → Bodrum Milas	41.3%	33.2 min	1.2%	3,604
5	Bristol → Dalaman	41.3%	32.7 min	0.8%	3,488
6	Bristol → Antalya	42.5%	31.9 min	0.4%	4,056
7	London Gatwick → Antalya	42.6%	34.5 min	0.9%	15,210
8	London Gatwick → Thira Santorini	45.1%	31.9 min	0.9%	4,004
9	Manchester → Corfu	45.5%	32.5 min	0.6%	4,520
10	London Gatwick → Heraklion	45.8%	28.8 min	1.1%	7,034
11	Birmingham → Antalya	45.9%	32.6 min	0.3%	7,026
12	London Gatwick → Dalaman	46%	33.1 min	1.2%	10,905
13	London Gatwick → Casablanca Mohamed V	46%	29 min	1.1%	3,198
14	London Gatwick → Kefallinia	47%	30.8 min	0.6%	3,183
15	Manchester → Cancun	47.4%	37.3 min	1.3%	3,065
16	London Gatwick → Larnaca	47.6%	31.5 min	1.7%	8,020
17	London Gatwick → Corfu	47.9%	33.2 min	0.6%	7,194
18	Manchester → Heraklion	48.2%	31 min	0.5%	3,787
19	Bristol → Lisbon	48.7%	29.2 min	1.1%	3,397
20	Manchester → Antalya	48.9%	30.1 min	0.5%	15,450
21	Manchester → Athens	49.7%	26.6 min	0.6%	4,422
22	London Luton → Tel Aviv	50.5%	24.9 min	1.7%	10,404
23	Manchester → Lisbon	50.8%	27.2 min	0.8%	11,461
24	London Heathrow → Algiers	50.9%	29.7 min	0.3%	3,205
25	London Luton → Athens	51%	27.3 min	0.4%	4,292

Methodology

A flight counts as "on time" if it arrives within 15 minutes of its scheduled time (UK CAA definition). Routes are scored on a flight-weighted average across every airline and every month in the dataset.

We only include international routes with at least 3,000 scheduled flights so the ranking isn't skewed by tiny samples. Domestic UK routes are covered separately under the UK airport league.

Source: UK CAA Punctuality Statistics. Data refreshed monthly.

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