It is the fourth year in a row that the number of flight delays and cancellations has decreased in the UK. The number of incidents, which refers to all cancelled flights and flights with a delay of more than three hours to or from the UK, has dropped from 23,861 in 2014 to 22,620 in 2015. This is a decrease of 5.2%. According to EUclaim’s figures, this number has dropped by 6.8% since 2012.
The number of incidents where passengers in the UK are actually entitled to a compensation dropped by 6.6% in 2015. Passengers are not entitled to a compensation under the EC Regulation 261/2004 in the case of extraordinary circumstances, such as bad weather.
In general, UK carriers have in recent years been performing increasingly better and have been reducing the amount of flight incidents. Monarch and Jet2 show the strongest decline in incidents with Monarch’s total number of incidents declining 48.6% and Jet2’s by 32.4%. Ryanair and Thomson show, with 6.6% and 3.3% respectively, a slight decline in incidents in 2015.
FlyBE, Thomas Cook UK, Easyjet and British Airways all show an increase in the amount of incidents. With an increase of 44.5%, FlyBE has been the airline with worst punctuality statistics in 2015. Their number of incidents rose from 2872 in 2014 to 4150 in 2015. FlyBE, however, also shows a growing number of flights flying under the BE call sign.
Overall, 2015 was a very good year for UK carriers in terms of incidents. Most airlines show a decline. EasyJet is the only major UK carrier who shows an upward trend in incidents since 2012. Last year, this was an increase of 22.4%. In 2015 the number of EasyJet flights as also grown.