Birmingham International the place to be for timely holiday flights

Punctuality figures for holidaymakers at Birmingham International Airport beat the national average last summer, latest figures have revealed.

But across the country airline passengers endured the worst summer delays for four years.

A total of 66 per cent of charter flights were on time at leading UK airports in July-September 2005, compared with 69 per cent in the same period of 2004, the Civil Aviation Authority said.

But Birmingham's charter services had 74 per cent of flights operating on time or less than 15 minutes late during the period.

The average national charter flight delay was 31 minutes, compared with 26 minutes in summer 2004.

However, the length of delay for charter services from Birmingham was 21 minutes, ten minutes shorter than the national average.

The overall national charter figures were the poorest since July-September 2001 - a period which included the aftermath of 9/11 and in which just 55 per cent of flights were on time and the average delay was 41 minutes.

The CAA figures covered flights into and out of ten airports - Birmingham, Heath-row, Gatwick, Luton, Stansted, Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow and London City.

Punctuality was poorest last summer at Gatwick where only 61 per cent of charter flights were on time.

Luton had the best record, with 77 per cent of charter flights on time.

The CAA also published figures which showed that 71 per cent of scheduled flights at the ten airports were on time in July-September 2005, a slight improvement on the 70 per cent figure achieved in summer 2004.

Birmingham had 76 per cent of scheduled flights operating on time or less than 15 minutes late in the July-September period.

The average scheduled flight delay fell from 17 minutes in summer 2004 to 16 minutes in summer 2005.

The length of delay for scheduled services from Birmingham was 15 minutes between July and September last year - one minute shorter than the national average.

John Morris, head of corporate affairs for BIA, said: "BIA was well above the national average for on-time flights and experienced shorter delays, particular on charter services."