BA’s north-east flights blighted by late arrival

British Airways customers flying to and from the north-east put up with more than 400 late flights in a month, the Press and Journal can reveal today.

Our special investigation found passengers using the airline’s flagship Aberdeen-London Heathrow service had only a one in three chance of arriving on time.

We tracked the progress of 938 flights – and discovered frustrated fliers wasted a total of nearly nine days waiting for their aircraft to take off.

Last night, passenger groups, business chiefs and politicians accused Britain’s premier airline of treating Aberdeen as a “provincial” route and jeopardising the north-east’s credentials as a place to do business.

The P&J monitored flights to and from London, Shetland and Orkney using BA’s own online service. It followed months of disquiet over the service BA offers to and from Aberdeen

We found that of the 469 flights arriving at Aberdeen, 200 were late. Delays totalled 114 hours – nearly five days.

Of the 469 flights that departed from Aberdeen, 214 were late, forcing passengers to spend another 96 hours, or four days, waiting around.

Just 80 of the 938 flights were on schedule.

And 75% of the 193 flights incoming from Heathrow were late. Only two were on schedule, 38 were early and the delays cost travellers 91 hours in wasted time.

Flights to Heathrow from Europe’s energy capital were only slightly better – 63% of the 200 tracked left late.

Just 15 were on schedule, 50 were early and delays added up to more than 74 hours.

One of the worst-hit Heathrow flights saw passengers wait in the departure lounge at Aberdeen for more than four hours on April 6. They finally boarded their scheduled 8.30pm flight at 12.24am on April 7.

Another delay saw travellers eventually arrive in Aberdeen from Heathrow at 12.23am on April 11 – two hours and 33 minutes late.

The revelations come as BA continues to suffer from the disastrous opening of Heathrow’s Terminal 5.

The £4billion building opened to great fanfare in March. Within hours the baggage-handling system lost thousands of items and hundreds of flights were hit.

During our investigation, carried out over the whole of April, we found that 17 flights between Aberdeen and Terminal 5 were cancelled.

Services to Kirkwall Airport in Orkney and Sumburgh Airport in Shetland, which are operated by Loganair under a BA franchise, appeared to provide a better service.

Just 32 of the 168 flights which were monitored arriving at Aberdeen from Sumburgh between March 31 and April 30 were late.

Three were on schedule, 129 were early and four were cancelled. Of the 160 flights tracked bound for Sumburgh, 56 were late, 30 were on schedule, 72 were early and two were cancelled.

BA’s service from Orkney to Aberdeen saw just 23 out of the 108 arriving flights delayed, with 77 early, six on schedule and two cancelled.

Of the outbound Orkney flights, 32 of the 109 tracked were late and 50 were early, while 24 were on schedule and three were cancelled.

Last night, Gordon MP Malcolm Bruce said BA should stop treating Aberdeen as “provincial” route, or let another airline which would give the Granite City priority take over.

He said: “Whenever there are delays and I watch the board, Aberdeen is always the first one held back, and usually for the longest as well.”

Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce said the figures risked “denting our credibility”.

A spokeswoman said: “As one of the world’s leading energy cities, it’s essential that we have regular, reliable services which the business community can count on.

“Many of our members operate in global markets and as such are frequent travellers, so constant delays are particularly frustrating and time-consuming for them.

“As a major contributor to the UK’s economy, we expect and should receive better service than this and we would hope to see a marked improvement in next month’s figures.”

The watchdog Air Transport Users Council is urging airlines to publish their performance on punctuality.

A spokesman said: “Delays are the number one complaint we receive and it is the number one issue for passengers, behind safety and security obviously.

British Airways apologised to customers last night, but said the T5 debacle would account for many of the delays and cancellations. “The period in question takes in the first 10 days following our move to T5 and reflects the disruption to British Airways' domestic and short-haul services when we were forced to cancel or delay hundreds of flights across the whole of our shorthaul flying programme,” a spokesman said.

“We have offered our sincere apologies to all our passengers.

“Over the first three months of the year a similar exercise would have shown punctuality on the Aberdeen-Heathrow service the best of any on BA’s UK domestic network.”