Edinburgh Airport fourth worst for flight delays in UK last year as top 10 revealed

Gatwick Airport was rated as the worst performing in the UK for flight delays last year, with Edinburgh coming fourth in the list

Edinburgh was one of the worst airports in the UK for flight delays last year in a rankings list topped by Gatwick, an investigation has found.

Departures from the Scottish capital’s main airport were delayed on average by 21 minutes and 48 seconds in 2023, according to analysis of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) data, ranking it as the fourth worst performing hub in the UK.

Flights from Gatwick, in West Sussex, were an average of nearly 27 minutes behind schedule last year.

Edinburgh Airport was ranked the fourth worst in the UK for flight delays last year. Picture: Lisa Ferguson

Gatwick airport, 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.

The transport hub said in a statement it was “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, followed by Edinburgh and Birmingham (21 minutes and 30 seconds).

Belfast City (George Best) airport had the best performance, with a typical delay of 12-and-a-half minutes.

Passengers wait to check in at Gatwick Airport. Picture: Kirsty Wigglesworth

Aberdeen (17 minutes and 42 seconds) ranked in 12th place, while the average delay of 16 minutes and 36 seconds at Glasgow ranked it 17th worst overall.

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.

A spokesman for Edinburgh Airport said: "These stats without context paint a very misleading picture that places airports at the centre. The CAA knows fine well it is airlines and not airports that operate flights, so it’s not clear who this benefits other than media interest for the CAA.

"Flight delays can be caused by a number of external factors including weather, the knock-on impact of delays elsewhere on the network, and crewing issues to name a few. None of these things come under the control of an airport.

"We and our airline partners work hard to provide the best experience for passengers, and 95 per cent of all commercial flights at Edinburgh in 2023 departed on time.”

Naomi Leach, deputy editor of consumer magazine Which? Travel, said: “It’s clear from these latest figures that millions of passengers continued to experience unacceptably long hold-ups last year. This cannot be allowed to become the new normal.”

CAA director Tim Johnson said it was vital the aviation sector “focuses on resilience” ahead of the summer holiday period to “keep passenger disruption to a minimum”. He said: “Where people do find themselves facing disruption, we want them to be well-informed about the duty of care that they are entitled to.”

Gatwick said in a statement: “As the most efficient single runway airport in the world, we aim to deliver a seamless passenger experience. The majority of cancellations are caused by poor weather, airspace constraints across Europe and inefficient third party ground operations. We are working closely with our airline partners to improve on-time performance.”