The Hungarian low-cost carrier’s UK departures were an average of 23 minutes late in 2017, according to Civil Aviation Authority data. Norwegian Air Shuttle had the second worst performance, followed by Vueling and Thomas Cook Airlines.
The ranking features 44 airlines with at least 2,000 scheduled flights from UK airports last year.
Average delay figures take into account every flight that operated, including those that were on time. Cancelled services are excluded from the CAA data.
SAS was the most punctual, with aircraft typically taking off just seven minutes behind schedule while Aer Lingus had the second best record, followed by Air France, Alitalia and Delta Air Lines. The average delay across all flights was 15 minutes.
A Wizz Air spokeswoman said: “A number of issues specific to the UK, including airport infrastructure, airspace congestion and slot restrictions contribute to a significantly worse on-time performance of our UK routes compared to the rest of our network.”
Disruption was caused by “particularly severe winter weather” last year. The airline is taking measures to improve its punctuality, such as basing eight aircraft in the UK to reduce its exposure to inbound delays.
Norwegian Air Shuttle’s UK flights mainly consist of short-haul services from Gatwick, Manchester and Edinburgh. Its average delay of 22 minutes did not take into account the majority of Norwegian’s long-haul flights from UK airports, which are operated by a British subsidiary.
The CAA said punctuality “clearly matters to airline passengers” and it publishes the performance of carriers to allow people to “make informed choices about which airline to fly with”.
