CAA PUNCTUALITY DATA · MAY 2026
How often UK flights run badly late, route by route
The UK Civil Aviation Authority publishes monthly punctuality statistics for the UK's reporting airports. This page indexes 406 routes from the May 2026 full-analysis file, 67,601 matched flights in all, with the share of flights recorded more than 3 hours late on each route, which is the line at which EC 261 and UK 261 compensation starts.
REVIEWED AGAINST RULE SET V6 AND THE CITED PRIMARY SOURCES · UPDATED 7 AUGUST 2026
The delay bands are shares of flights, not passengers; cancellations are counted separately. The CAA file does not state whether its bands were recorded at departure or arrival, while the regulation measures delay at final-destination arrival, so the record and the compensation test are related but not identical. Routes aggregating fewer than 50 matched flights in the month are excluded as noise, and destination cities served by more than one airport are excluded rather than guessed.
Airlines in the May 2026 data
Routes by departure airport
LONDON HEATHROW (LHR) · 62 ROUTES
LONDON GATWICK (LGW) · 51 ROUTES
MANCHESTER (MAN) · 43 ROUTES
LONDON STANSTED (STN) · 50 ROUTES
EDINBURGH (EDI) · 28 ROUTES
LONDON LUTON (LTN) · 32 ROUTES
BIRMINGHAM (BHX) · 20 ROUTES
BRISTOL (BRS) · 21 ROUTES
LONDON CITY (LCY) · 10 ROUTES
GLASGOW (GLA) · 14 ROUTES
NEWCASTLE (NCL) · 12 ROUTES
LEEDS BRADFORD (LBA) · 10 ROUTES
BELFAST (BFS) · 7 ROUTES
LIVERPOOL JOHN LENNON (LPL) · 8 ROUTES
EAST MIDLANDS (EMA) · 8 ROUTES
ABERDEEN (ABZ) · 6 ROUTES
GEORGE BEST BELFAST CITY (BHD) · 4 ROUTES
SOUTHAMPTON (SOU) · 4 ROUTES
JERSEY (JER) · 4 ROUTES
BOURNEMOUTH (BOH) · 2 ROUTES
CARDIFF (CWL) · 3 ROUTES
EXETER (EXT) · 4 ROUTES
ISLE OF MAN (IOM) · 1 ROUTES
TEESSIDE (MME) · 1 ROUTES
LONDON SOUTHEND (SEN) · 1 ROUTES
CONTAINS DATA FROM THE UK CIVIL AVIATION AUTHORITY PUNCTUALITY STATISTICS.
SOURCES
- UK Civil Aviation Authority punctuality statistics, full analysis (monthly CSV) · UK Civil Aviation Authority · checked 7 August 2026
- Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, Art. 7(1) · EUR-Lex · checked 7 August 2026
RELATED
The compensation rules for any route here are published as calculator pages, for example a delayed Gatwick to Malaga flight.