Best & Worst UK Flight Routes for Delays

Based on 6,110,734 scheduled flights across 607 international routes from UK airports.

Most punctual route

London Heathrow → Moscow Sheremetyevo

89.3% on time · 5.9 min avg delay

Most delayed route

Manchester → Rhodes

36.4% on time · 38.7 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	84.6%	7.6 min	0.8%	14,986
3	Aberdeen → Stavanger	83.9%	6.7 min	4.6%	10,412
4	Glasgow → Faro	83.8%	8.6 min	0.6%	4,331
5	East Midlands → Alicante	83.6%	10.2 min	0.1%	10,172
6	London Heathrow → Bogota	83.6%	25.7 min	0.4%	3,778
7	London Heathrow → Raleigh	83.5%	16.7 min	1.4%	3,528
8	Glasgow → Tenerife Surreina Sofia	83.4%	9.3 min	0.3%	5,857
9	Newcastle → Faro	83.2%	9.1 min	0.1%	4,763
10	Belfast International → Tenerife Surreina Sofia	82.9%	10 min	0.1%	4,528
11	East Midlands → Faro	82.9%	9.4 min	0.1%	6,778
12	Aberdeen → Bergen	82.5%	7.9 min	5.0%	6,305
13	East Midlands → Tenerife Surreina Sofia	82.5%	10.1 min	0.1%	7,883
14	Liverpool → Tenerife Surreina Sofia	82.2%	10.3 min	0.4%	5,564
15	London Gatwick → Shanghai Pu Dong	82%	10.5 min	0.4%	5,695
16	Liverpool → Faro	82%	11 min	0.6%	6,731
17	East Midlands → Malaga	81.9%	10.5 min	0.1%	7,737
18	Liverpool → Geneva	81.6%	10.7 min	0.3%	3,384
19	East Midlands → Arrecife	81.5%	10.8 min	0.1%	5,485
20	London Heathrow → Minneapolis-st Paul	81.4%	13.2 min	1.0%	3,729
21	Leeds Bradford → Faro	81.4%	12.2 min	0.5%	6,239
22	Manchester → Keflavik	81.3%	14.4 min	1.4%	6,685
23	London Luton → Chisinau Intl	81.2%	12.7 min	0.5%	3,324
24	London Heathrow → Cape Town	81.1%	15.3 min	0.3%	7,090
25	Liverpool → Malaga	81.1%	10.8 min	0.4%	8,737

Bottom 25 — the worst offenders

#	Route	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Flights
1	Manchester → Rhodes	36.4%	38.7 min	0.8%	5,134
2	London Gatwick → Chania	36.7%	39.4 min	1.2%	3,859
3	London Gatwick → Rhodes	39.6%	36.5 min	1.1%	7,018
4	London Gatwick → Bodrum Milas	42.8%	32.2 min	1.2%	3,767
5	Bristol → Dalaman	42.9%	31.6 min	0.8%	3,698
6	London Gatwick → Olbia	43.7%	34.4 min	1.4%	3,081
7	London Gatwick → Antalya	44.5%	33.2 min	0.9%	16,243
8	Bristol → Antalya	44.7%	30.7 min	0.4%	4,391
9	London Gatwick → Thira Santorini	46.3%	31.1 min	1.0%	4,149
10	Manchester → Corfu	46.4%	31.8 min	0.6%	4,716
11	London Gatwick → Casablanca Mohamed V	46.9%	28.2 min	1.0%	3,495
12	London Gatwick → Heraklion	47.2%	28.1 min	1.1%	7,425
13	Birmingham → Antalya	47.4%	31.4 min	0.3%	7,559
14	London Gatwick → Dalaman	47.5%	32 min	1.2%	11,473
15	London Gatwick → Kefallinia	48.1%	30.1 min	0.6%	3,323
16	Manchester → Cancun	48.7%	35.9 min	1.2%	3,251
17	Manchester → Heraklion	49.2%	30.2 min	0.5%	3,993
18	London Gatwick → Larnaca	49.7%	30 min	1.7%	8,689
19	London Gatwick → Corfu	49.9%	31.8 min	0.6%	7,602
20	Manchester → Antalya	50%	29.3 min	0.5%	16,413
21	Manchester → Athens	50.3%	26.3 min	0.7%	4,815
22	Bristol → Lisbon	50.4%	28 min	1.0%	3,767
23	London Luton → Tel Aviv	50.8%	24.7 min	1.7%	10,812
24	Manchester → Lisbon	51.9%	26.5 min	0.8%	12,466
25	London Heathrow → Algiers	52.4%	28.8 min	0.2%	3,397

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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