Edinburgh airport – Scotland’s busiest airport – has improved on punctuality and had the least delays on record during this spring, The Scotsman has reported, citing data from Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
For scheduled flights, Edinburgh reduced the average delay by one minute to eight minutes in April to June as compared to last year. A total of 86 per cent of flights operated within the industry’s punctuality standard of up to 15 minutes delay – an increase of two percentage points. The percentage is reportedly the airport’s highest for the season since CAA records began 15 years ago.
However, the punctuality of Edinburgh’s charter flights declined from 76 per cent to 62 per cent, with average delays increasing from 19 to 33 minutes. Only about two per cent of its passengers travelled on such flights, the airport said.
‘The team at Edinburgh airport is committed to giving our passengers the best service possible, and punctuality is an important component in this,’ a spokesman for Edinburgh Airport said. ‘It takes a lot of collaboration, co-ordination and dedication to get it right and we’re pleased to see we’re getting it right most of the time. ‘We’ll continue to work hard to make sure that this trend continues.’
Meanwhile, at Glasgow airport, scheduled flight punctuality improved by one percentage point to 84 per cent, with average delays down by one minute to ten minutes. The charter flight punctuality was unchanged at 76 per cent, with average delays increasing by four minutes to 22 minutes.
The spring – April to June – punctuality figures come as Edinburgh and Glasgow airports celebrated a record-breaking summer.
Passengers at Edinburgh increased by 10.6 per cent in August to nearly 1.04 million compared to last year. Glasgow’s August total was up by six per cent to 746,000.
Edinburgh airport chief executive, Gordon Dewar, said: ‘What a summer we’ve had. We were over the moon to see 1m passengers in July, but to report the same record-breaking milestone in August is fantastic. I also want to recognise the hard work of my team, our airlines, business partners and handling agents throughout this very busy time.’
Galsgow airport managing director, Amanda McMillan, said: ‘We enjoyed an extremely busy summer with more than 125,000 additional passengers using the airport during June, July and August compared to same period last year.
Not only was it our busiest summer in five years, it was one of our best in terms of operational performance. ‘Despite the significant increase in numbers and a host of large scale events, 99.4 per cent of our passengers passed through security in less than ten minutes during the summer months.’
