Luton, 04 January 2017: Birmingham has today been announced as the most punctual airport in the world, with over 91 per cent of flights both leaving and arriving on time, following the release of OAG’s 2016 Punctuality League.
With over 100,000 scheduled flights from Birmingham Airport last year, the most punctual routes were to Dublin, Alicante, Belfast, Dusseldorf and Glasgow, all of which boasted on-time scores of over 93 per cent. Birmingham also introduced new flight routes in 2016 including services to Doha, Lisbon and Bucharest. The UK airport beat contenders from countries such as Japan, Brazil, America, Germany and Australia to claim the global crown.
| Rank | Airport Name | On-time performance (OTP) 2016 |
| 1 | Birmingham | 91.28% |
| 2 | Osaka | 89.68% |
| 3 | Panama City | 89.56% |
| 4 | Belo Horizonte | 88.49% |
| 5 | Cologne Bonn | 88.27% |
| 6 | Cape Town | 86.06% |
| 7 | Milan Bergamo | 85.87% |
| 8 | Perth | 85.86% |
| 9 | Bahrain | 85.49% |
| 10 | Adelaide International | 84.90% |
Moving from airports to airlines, Monarch ranked first in OAG’s low-cost carrier category, with an on-time performance score of 85.67 per cent. Its biggest UK competition came from Jet2.com and easyJet, who ranked fourth and sixteenth respectively, achieving scores of 82.64 per cent and 74.7 per cent.
Top 10 low-cost carrier airlines by OTP
| Rank | Airline Name | On-time performance (OTP) 2016 |
| 1 | Monarch Airlines | 85.67% |
| 2 | GOL | 84.63% |
| 3 | Transavia | 83.98% |
| 4 | Jet2.com | 82.64% |
| 5 | Germanwings | 82.48% |
| 6 | Westjet | 81.36% |
| 7 | Southwest | 81.04% |
| 8 | Norwegian Air Shuttle | 79.23% |
| 9 | Thai AirAsia | 78.60% |
| 10 | Skymark Airlines | 78.32% |
As well as achieving the number one position amongst the low cost carriers, Monarch Airlines also jumped to fourth place in the top ten airlines within Europe the Middle East and Africa, with just KLM, Flybe and Iberia sitting marginally ahead. In 2015, Monarch ranked in seventh place in the league.
Continuing to showcase the UK’s strength, Newcastle airport also ranked first among the smaller airports – those with capacity between three and five million seats. In fact, both Birmingham and Newcastle were two of just six airports from around the world that achieved an on-time performance rating of over 90 per cent in 2016.
John Grant, Senior Analyst at OAG, said: “The UK’s airports and airlines have always been leaders in the global aviation industry, delivering exceptionally high service levels. The success of Birmingham is just another example of how the UK’s regional airports have created world-class facilities and networks that both connect their regional communities to the world, and provide valuable economic growth. Congratulations to Birmingham, Newcastle and Monarch.”
OAG’s Punctuality League is based on more than 54 million flight records using full-year data from 2016.
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View the full results from the OAG Punctuality League 2016 and download a copy of the full report.
About OAG
OAG is the world’s leading air travel intelligence company that provides accurate, timely and actionable flight information and applications to the world’s airlines, airports, government agencies and travel-related service companies. OAG has the world’s largest network of air travel data including the definitive schedules database of more than 900 airlines and over 4,000 airports. With the most extensive flight status information database in the market, OAG handles approximately 54 million records of flight status updates per year, processes 1.4 billion requests and continues to deliver in excess of 35 million dynamic flight status updates daily. For more information, visit: www.oag.com and follow us on Twitter @OAG Aviation.
Notes to editors:
The Punctuality League is based on approximately 54 million flight records using full year data from 2016 to create the best performers in an expanded range of categories. As in 2015, to qualify for inclusion in the OAG Punctuality League, the OAG Schedules database must have received at least 80% of all scheduled flights to and from an airport.
Airlines
OAG’s sample is based upon the ‘sum’ of arriving flights within 15 minutes of schedule as supplied to OAG and included in its database. OAG applies a minimum coverage of 80% to qualify inclusion in the Punctuality League, ‘coverage’ being defined as the percentage of scheduled flights for which OAG has on-time performance records.
Airports
OAG’s sample is based upon the ‘sum’ of both the departures and arrivals within 15 minutes of schedule. At least 80% of scheduled flights are reported, schedules being defined as what has been provided by airlines to the OAG database.
