Aviation data analysed by BBC News showed that passengers at London Gatwick faced the most flight delays in the UK, with those using Gatwick facing an average 18-minute delay per flight. Gatwick has said that it regretted any delays.

In comparison, Heathrow saw an average 13-minute delays.

The most delay-hit flight was reportedly a Pakistan International Airlines flight from Manchester to New York JFK, which was delayed by an average of 88 minutes, BBC News said. Overall it was late on eight out of 10 recorded flights in 2015.

Data from the CAA between January 2015 and March 2016 was analysed, revealing that the average delay among all airlines was around 15 minutes.

Turkmenistan Airlines had the highest number of delays, with passengers waiting on average 70 minutes beyond the scheduled departure time.

Responding to the report, Tim Alderslade, chief executive of the British Air Transport Association, said the government should do more to ease the pressure on the UK’s limited airspace.
 
“UK airlines have to provide good customer service to attract passengers in the highly competitive market in which they operate,” he said in a statement.

“Delays occur for a variety of reasons – for example, this year European aviation has experienced huge turmoil with ATC strikes in France causing hundreds of cancellations and time-consuming detours.

“Far too many journeys are also being disrupted by a lack of resilience in our airspace – the UK’s critical but invisible infrastructure – and more needs to be done by the government to prioritise and support the modernisation of our airspace, so that we can safely and effectively handle the 350 million passengers and 3.1 million aircraft that we expect to see in our skies by 2030.”