Flight Cancellations About to Ruin Your Christmas Plans?
Many of you will be looking to fly out to see spend time with loved ones over the Christmas break, but are you going to be affected by flight cancellations? We explore further in this blog…
Unfortunately our crystal ball isn’t working right now, so we can’t tell you exactly what might happen with your flights or upcoming flight cancellations, but what we can do is look at some data provided by the Civil Aviation Authority to draw some insights into which airlines to lookout for and those who have a bad history in general of failing to meet expectations. We explored three main categories:
- % of last minute cancellations by the airline less than 24 hours before departure
- % of flights that we’re on-time by the airline
- % of flights that were more than 3 hours late
Last-Minute Flight Cancellations: The Worst Offenders
Eastern Airways was by far the worst offenders with a shocking 10.5% of flights cancelled less than 24 hours before departure. Pretty disastrous. This is more likely to affect those travelling to parts of Scotland so be aware!
Of some of the larger airlines, KLM was pretty bad with 3.9% of flights cancelled in less than 24 hours, which is a fair bit worse than the likes of Air Lingus, British Airways or event EasyJet or WizzAir.
You can see the full results in the table below.
Long Delays: Who’s Keeping You Waiting?
Air India, American Airlines and WizzAir were some pretty likely to keep you waiting a while (Over 3 hours). On the flip side, airlines such as EasyJet, Virgin Atlantic and Lufthansa faired pretty well when looking at the 3+ hour delay data which definitely did surprise us a little.
One of Our Bug Bears: Punctuality
Turkey didn’t fair too well either, with SunExpress and their co-owner Turkish Airlines only had 45% and 51% of their flights leaving on time respectively.
Again Air India and maybe somewhat surprisingly Swiss Airlines didn’t do to well in terms of flights leaving on time.
When it comes to British Airways’ offshoots, there’s a bit of a mixed bag. Take BA Euroflyer, for example, which operates short-haul flights from Gatwick. Its punctuality record isn’t exactly stellar—only 58% of its flights departed on time. However, there’s a silver lining: a mere 0.03% of those flights were actually cancelled, so your chances of a total letdown are pretty slim.
On the other hand, we have BA Cityflyer, which has a more promising track record. Based at London City and also flying from Stansted, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other locations, BA Cityflyer managed to have 74% of its flights depart on time. But don’t get too comfortable—2.3% of their flights were cancelled within 24 hours, mirroring the parent airline’s trend.
It seems that while one branch struggles with keeping on schedule, the other is doing a tad better, though neither is free from last-minute hiccups.
Battle of the Budget Airlines: Ryanair vs. easyJet vs. Jet2
When it comes to cancellations, Ryanair seems to have the upper hand over easyJet. Only 0.2% of Ryanair’s flights were cancelled at the last minute, whereas easyJet saw 0.9% of its flights meet the same fate.
But what about punctuality? The two airlines are nearly neck-and-neck, with just over 65% of Ryanair flights leaving on time, and easyJet slightly ahead with just under 67% of flights departing as scheduled.
However, both airlines were outperformed by Jet2, which showed impressive reliability with almost 68% of flights departing on time and a mere 0.1% being cancelled at the last minute. Jet2 might just be your best bet if you’re looking for a budget airline that sticks to its schedule.
Best and Worst Airlines for Flight Cancellations and Delays – Full Table
Here’s a table summarising the performance of various airlines, courtesy of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA):
| Airlines | Last-minute Cancellations % | On time % | More than Three Hours Late % |
|---|---|---|---|
| EASTERN AIRWAYS | 10.5 | 65.2 | 1.5 |
| WIDEROE | 7.4 | 76 | 0.1 |
| AIR CHINA | 6.2 | 84.9 | 0.3 |
| AURIGNY AIR SERVICES | 4.7 | 53.6 | 2.7 |
| KLM | 3.9 | 64.9 | 0.4 |
| LUFTHANSA | 3.7 | 60.9 | 0.1 |
| LOGANAIR | 3.6 | 70.9 | 0.6 |
| BLUE ISLANDS | 3.1 | 69.1 | 1.4 |
| STOBART AIR | 2.8 | 70.6 | 0.8 |
| AER LINGUS | 2.6 | 68.8 | 0.7 |
| LUXAIR | 2.6 | 70.9 | 0.3 |
| ITA – ITALIA | 2.5 | 58.8 | 0.3 |
| BA CITYFLYER | 2.3 | 74 | 0.2 |
| BRITISH AIRWAYS | 2.2 | 65.4 | 0.4 |
| SWISS AIRLINES | 2.1 | 51.2 | 0.2 |
| EUROWINGS | 1.7 | 59.8 | 0.3 |
| VIRGIN ATLANTIC | 1.6 | 69.1 | 0.3 |
| UNITED AIRLINES | 1.6 | 79.8 | 1.2 |
| DELTA AIRLINES | 1.6 | 80.6 | 1.2 |
| AMERICAN AIRLINES | 1.5 | 80 | 2.4 |
| AIR INDIA | 1.5 | 48.1 | 4 |
| SAS | 1.4 | 77.2 | 0.2 |
| AIR CANADA | 1.3 | 74.9 | 1.3 |
| BRUSSELS AIRLINES | 1.3 | 66.8 | 0.2 |
| AIR FRANCE | 1.2 | 71.9 | 0.3 |
| AUSTRIAN AIRLINES | 1.2 | 66.6 | 0.2 |
| VUELING AIRLINES | 1 | 61.3 | 0.7 |
| NORSE ATLANTIC | 1 | 66.7 | 1 |
| EL AL | 1 | 40.5 | 0.6 |
| EASYJET | 0.9 | 66.6 | 0.4 |
| WIZZ AIR | 0.9 | 63 | 1.8 |
| EMERALD AIRLINES | 0.9 | 81.8 | 0.7 |
| FINNAIR | 0.9 | 66.8 | 0.2 |
| ICELANDAIR | 0.9 | 75.1 | 0.5 |
| AIR PORTUGAL | 0.8 | 51 | 0.4 |
| JETBLUE AIRWAYS | 0.8 | 87.2 | 0.8 |
| LOT-POLISH AIRLINES | 0.8 |
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