Flights are often subject to delays or, in the worst cases, cancellations which can somewhat dampen holiday spirit. When this happens, travellers usually have to stick it out in the airport and find ways to entertain themselves. Yet if the delay occurs when they are on board the aircraft, prior to take off, it can be even more frustrating. Now a much loved holiday destination for British travellers has been hailed the worst for flight punctuality, with figures showing routes to the Mediterranean destination are most likely to be delayed.
Figures exclusive to Express.co.uk from AirHelp analysed more than 600,000 aircraft movements.
They found that Malta has the worst on-time-performance (OTP) ranking, with only a third of its flights arriving on time.
The survey found only 39.6 per cent of Maltese flights are punctual.
More than 900 of over 3,400 flights analysed from the country were delayed by more than 15 minutes or more, or cancelled.
Meanwhile, hot on Malta’s heels for flight tardiness, the rating found less than half (48.3 per cent) of Portugal’s flights were on-time.
Meanwhile, tipping the other end of the holiday scale, nearly three-quarters of Morocco’s flights arrived on-time.
These amounted to 72.1 per cent – nearly double the amount of Malta’s
Paloma Salmeron, passenger rights expert at AirHelp, said: “We urge passengers to buckle up for what we are expecting to be a record-breaking year of flight disruption and a particularly large number of unpunctual flights.
“The airline industry is continually failing those that matter the most – the passengers – and more needs to be done to ensure that holidaymakers are not the victims of disruption in the air industry.
“A significant proportion of those affected by delays or cancellations this summer will lose precious time from their summer holiday, which is unacceptable.
“In 2018, UK air passengers lost 45,000 summer holiday hours due to flight delays, and whilst air passengers understand that delays aren’t always avoidable, airlines and airports will suffer from a crisis of trust if they don’t improve on the disastrous situation of 2018.”
In a distinctly bleak forecast, AirHelp predicts as many as 33,000 flights could be disrupted globally, every day in 2019.
Express.co.uk recently reported on whether passengers would be entitled to compensation if their flight is delayed or cancelled due to a strike.
Last week, London airports were hit by huge disruption prompted by the heatwave in Europe.
Heathrow travellers have also told of “gross” delay at security as the summer season hits its peak.