AirHelp reveals over 15m UK passengers faced disruption in Q3

40% of UK air travellers suffered delays between July and September this year

Passenger rights organisation AirHelp reveals that 15 million passengers across the UK suffered from disruptions when travelling on a plane between July and September this year.

Over 235,963 flights were registered departing from the UK and over 37 million people planned a getaway during this period.

AirHelp’s data uncovered that approximately 40% of travellers experienced disruptions.

Whilst most of the UK passengers faced delays under 3 hours, over 1.2 million people had the right to claim and receive financial compensation from their airline.

A further 681,000 travellers had their trips cancelled altogether.

During the summer season, London Gatwick was found to have the highest disruption rate of 55%, affecting over 3.2 million passengers.

Edinburgh Airport followed with 44% of passengers disrupted between July and September this year.

Meanwhile, AirHelp’s data found that the most punctual airport during this period was Belfast City Airport with only 25% of flights disrupted.

When looking at the most disrupted routes from UK airports, the found that London Gatwick to Jeddah Saudi Arabia ranked the highest with over 96% of flights disrupted during this period.

Routes from Heathrow Airport take the second, fourth and fifth spot on the ranking - with its route to Bangalore Airport having a disruption rate of 87%. In third place is Manchester International Airport to Istanbul, with 81% of passengers facing delays or cancellations.

On the other hand, the luckiest passengers were those who travelled from Heathrow Airport to Cologne, with over 97% of the flights taking place between July and September departing on time.

Manchester International Airport to Dusseldorf and Luton Airport to Lublin Airport, Poland are the other routes with the highest percentage of punctuality at 96% and 93% respectively.

Tomasz Pawliszyn, CEO of AirHelp, said: "AirHelp has one of the most reliable and accurate collections of flight data in the world.

“This allows us to provide holidaymakers and business travellers with an in-depth look at how airlines and airports are performing.

“With ongoing strikes, Air Traffic Control outages and rising disruption levels, recent months have proved that those based in the UK have significant opportunities for improvement, to ensure the service they are providing to passengers is as punctual as possible.”