'Unrivalled punctuality': Belfast's George Best Airport named best in the UK for on-time performance

Chief operating officer Mark Beattie said assessment of flight delays during the 2023 calendar year highlighted Belfast City’s “unrivalled punctuality”.

The airport had a typical delay of 12-and-a-half minutes with Gatwick being the worst with an average of nearly 27 minutes behind schedule in 2023, according to analysis of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) data by the PA news agency.

Belfast International was in tenth place with an average delay time of 19 minutes and 18 seconds.

Mr Beattie said: “We are thrilled to have the best on-time-performance of any airport in the UK across the calendar year 2023.

“This achievement is owing to our team’s dedication to going above and beyond to maximise performance and efficiencies to ensure our passengers can move through the airport, and get to their destination, as quickly as possible.”

Mr Beattie added: “Our unrivalled punctuality combined with our prime location, only five minutes from the heart of Belfast city centre, and an average security processing time of just six minutes allows our passengers to enjoy a smooth start to every journey.”

Gatwick, which is the second-busiest in the UK, was badly affected by air traffic control (ATC) staff shortages across Europe last year, and repeatedly suffered the same problem in its own control tower. Gatwick said in a statement it is “working closely with our airline partners to improve on-time performance”.

Luton airport had the second poorest punctuality record last year, with an average delay of almost 23 minutes. In third place was Manchester airport, at nearly 22 minutes.

The average delay for flights across all airports was almost 20 minutes and 42 seconds, down from 23 minutes and 12 seconds in 2022, when the aviation sector struggled to cope with a surge in demand for holidays following the end of coronavirus travel restrictions.

The analysis took into account all scheduled and chartered departures from the 22 commercial UK airports with at least 1,000 outbound flights last year. Cancellations were not included.