EasyJet suffers from its own success as delays almost double

Passengers flying with the largest airline at Scotland's busiest airport saw delays nearly double in the first half of the year, new figures show.

EasyJet flights to and from Edinburgh were nearly 20 minutes late between January and June on average, compared with less than 11 minutes in the same period last year.

Almost one in ten of its flights were at least one hour late - more than twice as many as a year ago, according to Civil Aviation Authority figures analysed by the website flightontime.info. Experts said the airline had been expanding too quickly and had over-stretched itself.

The airport's best-performing carrier, BMI Regional, which flies on similar routes to EasyJet, saw average delays of seven minutes, up from nearly five minutes a year ago.

The figures do not cover cancelled flights, including those affected by the volcanic ash cloud or strikes. As a result, British Airways' average delay was nine minutes, a figure similar to last year.

EasyJet was also least punctual of the five airlines competing on Edinburgh-London routes, with delays averaging 18 minutes compared with nearly eight minutes for BA and almost six minutes for BMI. CityJet and BA CityFlyer, which operate to London City, had average delays of seven and 11 minutes.

Ryanair, Edinburgh's second largest airline, saw its average delays increase from 11 minutes to 15 minutes, but its punctuality benefits from mainly flying to smaller, less congested airports.

It was a similar picture at Glasgow, where EasyJet's overall average delay also almost doubled, from eight to 15 minutes. The airline was least punctual on the Glasgow-London routes, with average delays of 15 minutes, compared with eight minutes for BA, six minutes for BMI and nearly 12 minutes for BA CityFlyer.

EasyJet also fared worst between Aberdeen and London, with average delays of more than 18 minutes.

Aviation experts said EasyJet's problems derived from growing too fast. Richard Havers, an aviation writer and former senior airline executive, said: "They have reached a point where they have such a complex operation that when anything goes wrong it has a major effect - they have overstretched themselves."

EasyJet admitted its performance had been poor but said it had significantly improved in the past few months. A spokeswoman said: "As announced earlier this year, we recognised our punctuality record in the first part of 2010 has not been as good as it should have been.

"No single issue was to blame - it was a combination of air traffic control strikes and go-slows across Europe aggravating crewing and scheduling issues at some of our bases.

"Since implementing a number of initiatives to minimise the disruption to passengers, we have seen a marked improvement in our on-time performance at every base we fly from."