BristolUK

Over a quarter of flights to UK are delayed, research shows
I was a bit puzzled by the "arriving late" focus in the article. Surely it's late departure that matters whether this is from the UK or some other country. And if arriving is the thing to look at shouldn't there be a comparison be with flights arriving late at other destinations?
Or a punctuality rate of 55%, 56% and 60%.

Leisure airline Air Transat. Is this because most of their flights are of a holiday nature involving a different kind of flyer with a different mindset? Perhaps punctuality comparisons could be made with other leisure airlines.

A quick google has Air Transat doing well, overall, when ranked like for like.

Does Leisure Airline describe what used to be called Charter flights as opposed to scheduled flights. Jetsave is one charter airline I remember for crossing the Atlantic in the 70s. I did my London-LA and NYC-London with them in 78.

But I had to laugh at What, these things only affect them and not the others?
KLM's is 88% even before the "beyond our control" is factored in.

Why would one airline be worse than others? Slower planes?

Shoddy standards and planes taking longer to be ready for take off?

Airports giving better service/priority to bigger airlines? Sabotage?

not2old

My guess is the Guardian article pointing out the delays means nothing to most for the reason they will continue to choose the lowest cost direct flight between Canada to a UK destination then continue to whinge about how awful it was.

For now it's Transat for the lowest fare direct flight YYZ-MAN-YYZ

Should BA or AC offer year round direct flights at a cost lower than Transat then I will go with one of them.

Aviator

And will continue to be so. BA and AC fly into Heathrow, Transat into Gatwick. Significant difference in costs there alone.

Once a delay occurs, for whatever reason, often a flight will miss its slot at the destination airport. The result is having to not only clear the POI, but also get an arrival slot at the destination.

OrangeMango

Air Canada Rouge also seems to fly to Gatwick, same as Air Transat and West-Jet, if you're departing from Toronto to London.

Air Canada seems to charge $ 30 just for a seat reservation, even in economy. Makes you wonder where the difference between Air Canada and a no frills carrier really is these days.

BA also seems to charge for a seat reservation.

These practices have not been in place on long haul flights.
Things are changing, not always for the best.

dbd33

FWIW, I flew Air Transat to Gatwick and back within the past fortnight as well as EasyJet to and from Geneva. The EJ flight was traffic delayed so we circled the airport, the other flights were on time. What I noted was that the level of service on these two airlines was comparable to that on most "full price" carriers I've used. Air Transat was a bit technically dated in that they use actual boarding cards, not a scan of your phone, but it all seemed to work.

For me Air Transat have a much better "on time" record than Air Canada, I've flown the former several times and they've always met my definition of "on time" (door open within an hour of published arrival time), AC never have in, I dunno, a couple of hundred, tries.

scrubbedexpat091

We have one flight (not air transat) that is late almost daily by 2 to 3 hours, maybe goes out on time once a week. The issue is traffic issues at the destination airport, and ATC at the destination airport holding flights at their origin.

There are delays airlines can control and others an airline can't control such as weather and ATC type delays.

BristolUK

I expect I'll need to have the back of my hand stamped then.

dbd33

There's a surcharged service for that.