Deirdre Fulton & Becca Rowland

Some pockets of great OTP performance are apparent this month, particularly in Europe, with 20 of Germany’s biggest airports all recording OTP over 90%. Specifically, Cologne/Bonn (CGN); Berlin (SXF); Hannover (HAJ); and Stuttgart (STR)all saw OTP increase to 95% or over in February.  The average rate across all 20 airports was 94% - up from 85% last year. Poland’s main airports also report great OTP performance in February, with Warsaw (WAW) and Poznan (POZ) getting 96% of flights away on time. Perhaps we are seeing the positive impact of a milder winter across Western and Central Europe?

Looking across Europe, February OTP records do show a trend towards improvement – Eastern/Central Europe OTP improved from 82% on average to 90%, whilst Western Europe saw OTP grow from 85% to 88%.  This winter has undoubtedly one of the wettest on record in Europe, but with less snow around, there appears to have been less disruption to airport operational performance?   Not so for Japan unfortunately, which saw its worst snowfall for 45 years this February, impacting on performance at its two main airports which saw OTP fall.
 
Across the Pacific, California’s airports also seem to be suffering in February, with SFO, LAX and SAN all seeing OTP fall by 10 percentage points or more compared to last February.  This maybe weather related as there were severe winter storms across the state towards the end of February – however these generated mostly rain rather than snow.   North America generally recorded poor OTP in February – amongst the Top 20 airports by flights, only Miami managed to improve OTP, probably reflecting its temperate climate.  Those countries still feeling they are in the grip of winter can only hope that spring is on its way.

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