Summer holiday flight cancellations were up by a quarter at UK airports last year
Summer holiday flight cancellations at UK airports increased by almost a quarter year-on-year between 2014 and 2015, according to new figures from Columbus Direct.
Travellers ready to jet off suffered significant disruption last year as 1,297 flights scheduled to depart from UK airports were cancelled between the peak holiday period of July to September.
Extensive delays of two hours or more across the peak summer holiday period also increased by 10 per cent.
Fliers spent a combined 16,067 hours waiting for delayed flights to depart from airports, while 1,532 flights were delayed by three hours or more.
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London Heathrow had the greatest number of flights cancelled of all UK airports, with 383 scheduled flights not taking off, while London City cancelled 121 flights during the same period.
Passengers' journeys were also the most disrupted at Gatwick and Heathrow, as 3,056 flights were delayed at Gatwick by an hour or more in the summer season (eight per cent of all departures) and 2,663 journeys were disrupted at Heathrow (4.5 per cent of all departures).
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Lufthansa had the lowest levels of flight disruption, with only 0.2 per cent of its 3,765 departures experiencing a delay of more than two hours.
"Passengers are spending precious holiday time worrying about missing connecting flights or whether they will be able to jet out at all," said Alison Wild, head of marketing at Columbus Direct.