Half of Istanbul flights late

Passengers travelling to Istanbul faced delays on more than half of flights during the first three months of the year.

Only 49 per cent of flights to the Turkish city were on time, figures published by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) show.

They also reveal that more than a third of scheduled flights to Dubai, Madrid, New York's JFK and Newark airports, Mumbai in India, and Toronto in Canada were delayed – defined as later than 15 minutes.

Punctuality fell at Gatwick, London City airport, Manchester and Newcastle in the first three months of the year.

At Glasgow, the average delay increased from 18 minutes to 29 minutes, although this was almost entirely due to a closure caused by blizzards in March.

Edinburgh, on the other hand, increased its on-time performance for scheduled flights from 73 per cent to 79 per cent.

Overall, more than a third of charter flights were delayed in the first quarter of the year, with on-time performance falling from 66 per cent to 65 per cent in 2006.

But the delays were on average a minute shorter than the same time last year, down to 27 minutes from 28 minutes.

Passengers on scheduled flights were also delayed for less time, with the average delay falling from 15 minutes to 14 minutes.

The number of on-time scheduled flights increased compared with last year from 73 per cent to 74 per cent. XXX