Terminal lateness: Britain's most delayed airlines are revealed

Published: 00:50, 22 June 2026 | Updated: 03:01, 22 June 2026 It's the airline millions of us trust to whisk us away for our holidays every year. But Tui Airways has been ranked among the worst airlines for UK flight punctuality. Its UK departures were on average 20 minutes and 24 seconds behind schedule last year, according to Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) data. The least punctual of its routes with at least 100 flights was Birmingham to Zante in Greece, with an average delay of 46 minutes. Tui Airways is owned by Tui Group, which also operates the UK's second-largest package holiday company. Many of its customers use the airline, which serves more than 20 British airports. Aage Dunhaupt, of Tui Group, said 'minimising delays remains a top priority'. He added that the airline operates flights 'wherever possible, even if they are delayed, rather than cancelling them'. He added: 'If we were to follow broader industry practices of cancelling flights more readily, our punctuality ranking would improve significantly. However, this would come at the expense of our customers.'  The CAA's punctuality analysis took into account all scheduled and chartered UK departures by 34 airlines that operated more than 2,500 of these flights in 2025 – cancelled flights were not included. Tui Airways has been ranked among the worst airlines for UK flight punctuality Your browser does not support iframes. What do you think airlines should do to finally fix chronic flight delays for UK travellers? What's your view?Tui was ranked fifth worst for punctuality. Air India had the poorest record for the second year in a row, with an average delay of more than 36 minutes. Scandinavian Airlines recorded the best performance, with UK departures delayed by an average of eight minutes. The average delay across all airlines included in the analysis was 14 minutes and 48 seconds – down from 18 minutes and 18 seconds in 2024. Rory Boland, of consumer magazine Which? Travel, said it was 'unacceptable' that passengers 'face unreliable service' amid fare rises. Airlines UK, a trade body for UK-registered carriers, said 'most delays are the result of issues that are entirely outside airline control'. The comments below have not been moderated. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.