First Choice Airways leads punctuality

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Member for

19 years

Posts: 1,995

First Choice Airways came out as the most punctual airline for the period April-July 2005 with an average delay of 17.08 minutes

Thomson drop down to 2nd, the rest of the table is below (average delay in brackets):

1. First Choice Airways (17.08)
2. Thomsonfly Charter (17.47)
3. My Travel Airways (27.82)
4. Thomas Cook Airways (27.90)
5. Monarch Airlines (30.48)
6. Excel Airways (36.24)
7. Astraeus (44.59)
8. Flyjet (56.36)

The rest of the data is here: http://www.flightontime.info/charter/charter.html

Original post

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 6,503

Interesting statistics, though even the best performer's results are slightly disappointing.

Member for

20 years 5 months

Posts: 5,019

i agree, Im surprised about BY/BAL/TOM dropping to 2nd, lol.

Member for

20 years 2 months

Posts: 2,495

From a DUB point of view that just about correct mind you we only have 2 of those airlines flying in and out.
I must praise DP and ZB for the excellent punctuallity all summer in DUB they did a great job and are 2 very professionally run airlines.

They had the odd problem but then who didnt?

MyTravel were also quite good using the Skyservice A320 which just let them down once or twice with 24 hour+ delays but MYT must be praised for the way which they sorted the problems out at one stage we had the A320 as well as a MYT A330 and 757 making up for the delays. I only wish Eirjet could have been as good.

Member for

19 years

Posts: 1,995

Thomas cook have had a bad summer, cos i remember a few years ago they always seemed to win the Best on time charter airline as they advertised it in Airliner World.
I have to say, FCA have always been early for me and BY only once late so perhaps this is fair.

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18 years 6 months

Posts: 1,064

Not good for flyjet, they are small and if they want to expand they have got to have a good reputation and this isn't how you go about doing it.

Member for

20 years 10 months

Posts: 9,401

The thing you have to remember about FlyJet is they only have 2 aircraft, if something goes wrong with one of them, they are in trouble!

Well done FCA, though I will always swear by Thomsonfly for punctuality.

Member for

18 years 6 months

Posts: 1,064

I agree with you there LBARules. I just don't understand why big companies like BY, MON, FCA have to borrow, at a high expense, aircraft when one of theirs goes tech or something, I would think they'd have a spair. I once had an idea right that some big airlines would join together and get themselves a spair - each paying equal amounts for its upkeep and using it when required, but then I thought there'd be squabbling if two went tech at the same time.

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20 years 10 months

Posts: 9,401

Airlines simply cannot afford to have aircraft sitting round doing nothing, especially in the height of summer, they have to be out in the air as much as possible earning money.

Member for

20 years 5 months

Posts: 5,019

Tom, im with you on that one, if i fly on a charter airline, my first preference is Britannia/ThomsonFly

Member for

19 years

Posts: 1,995

Well flyjet had that emergency at Manchester a couple of weeks ago and their 757s are old, but they do have a 767-200ER now but not sure on what it does for them. Astraeus are useless i think and Excel lease a few planes, so that could be an excuse for them.

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20 years 1 month

Posts: 3,124

Flyjet were/are rubbish. ;) When I flew them they only had one aircraft though!

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19 years 9 months

Posts: 1,105

It would be grate to see a brake down of these figures, and how much of a delay is casued by the airline, atc, and late passengers

Kevin

Member for

18 years 11 months

Posts: 8,847

It would be grate to see a brake down of these figures, and how much of a delay is casued by the airline, atc, and late passengers

Kevin

I thought Wozza's spelling was bad. are you trying to outdo him? :D

grate/GREAT, brake/BREAK, casued/CAUSED, :D

Member for

19 years 9 months

Posts: 334

I'm suprised by Britannia/Thomsonfly's performance; over the years I have frequently been delayed with them. I tried them again this year expecting good things; outbound flight delayed 1h 45 min!!

Member for

19 years 8 months

Posts: 741

i like first choice airways, allthough my flight to Turin back in Feb, outbound was delayed by 50 minutes due to passengers not being at the gate on time, and causing the female captain to leave the flightdeck and frogmarch them to there seats while the other passengers boo'd and jeered them, but gave the capt a round of applause.

And on the way back the flight to Stansted was delayed by 3 1/2 hrs, i asked one of the cabin crew why the delay and she said the plane has been running late all day and trying to play catch up, ableit unsuccesfully.

On both flights for some reason there was 3 captains up in the pit, i tried to ask why, but nobody could give me an answer.

Member for

18 years 6 months

Posts: 1,289

FCA puntuality

I flew FCA back in March and we had a short delay on the way out, but it wasn't the airlines fault because there was a lot of fog at LGW, and all the flights were running a bit late.

Member for

18 years 6 months

Posts: 2,343

First Choice Airways came out as the most punctual airline for the period April-July 2005 with an average delay of 17.08 minute

Are these stats for a specific airport (i.e LGW)?

I worked for Groundstar (now called Swissport!) at LGW, doing ground handling for FCA... As a check-in agent, I can remember that we had speicifc closure times and boarding times, and also because we all worked really well as a team, we were able to get the aircraft out at the best possible time.

The only thing which causes delays are the passengers that don't turn up to the gate on time...for example, I was boarding a flight (can't remember where it was going) and there were two passengers left to board and I was calling them to come to gate as qucikly as possible otherwise they would be offloaded. Eventually, they arrived...their excuse: " The queue was really long at WHSmiths!"

Member for

20 years 1 month

Posts: 1,098

Both my flights with FCA last week were late. Outbound was 30 minutes late, inbound was 50 minutes late.

Member for

19 years

Posts: 1,995

The data i posted is for all UK airports, but at Gatwick the figures were as follows: (average delay in brackets)

1. Thomsonfly (19.63 )
2 First Choice Airways (19.91)
3 MyTravel Airways (20.47)
4 Monarch Airlines (32.42 )
5 Thomas Cook Airlines (36.89)
6 Excel Airways (37.33)
7 Astraeus (52.69)
8 Flyjet (64.26)

It's a bit poor considering we pay good money to go with these companies that they can;t deliver an excellent service. Apart from the top 3, the rest are apalling. I know sometimes it isn't their fault, e.g. weather delays, but it should be better.

Thomsonfly must have been let down at the other airports as they were top here, but i think first choice pulled back at manchester where they were the best ontime carrier and also at Glasgow i think. Luton had nearly a 22min delay for Thomsonfly so that's perhaps why they finished 2nd to FCA in the main delay table

Member for

19 years 10 months

Posts: 784

Im not surprised with Astraeus being so far down that list.

Here at Leeds/Bradford the based Astraeus machine was a Boeing 737-300 which always going have problems on the longer runs down to places such as Larnaca, Las Palmas and Tenerife. Also not forgetting the Accident when one of the aircraft lost cabin pressure and was out of service with the diversion into Brest earlier in the season. LBA ended up with a B737-700 while Manchester ended up with a Tri-star. I also seem to remember one week in June/July the LBA based aircraft was struck by a ground handling unit at LBA Which damage the front Right hand door. This put the aircraft out of service for 2/3 days.

Astreaus were delayed week in week out when G-STRA was based here at LBA but as soon as G-STRJ arrived the problem seem to go. Anyway at least we are getting a Boeing 737-700NG Next summer.