Thomas Cook Airlines has the longest delays of any major operator flying out of Manchester Airport, a new study has revealed.
Researchers have looked at the delays affecting hundreds of thousands of flights taking off from UK airports every year.
Those figures were then broken down by airport and operator to compile a local 'league of shame'.
Thomas Cook had the worst record of any company to see more than 2,500 flights take off from Manchester between January 2017 and March this year - the latest figures available.
Its 12,265 departures were delayed by an average of 22.3 minutes over that period.
Nearly a third of all Thomas Cook flights out of Manchester (32 per cent) were delayed by at least 15 minutes, the analysis shows.
The company’s performance has been getting better during recent times.
In 2017, Thomas Cook flights out of Manchester were delayed by an average of 21.6 minutes. That rose to 23.6 minutes in 2018, but dropped back to 17.6 minutes for the first three months of this year.
Eurowings had the second worst record for flights out of Manchester, with an average delay of 19.2 minutes over the 27-month period.
Tui Airways had an average delay of 18.6 minutes, Easyjet 17.0 minutes, and Ryanair 16.1 minutes.
SAS fared best. The company’s 4,020 departures from Manchester between January 2017 and March 2019 had an average delay of just 9.7 minutes. Aer Lingus and Virgin Atlantic had the next shortest delays.
The analysis only includes airlines which saw at least 2,500 departures from Manchester in total during the period, and which operated at least one flight between January and March this year.
A Thomas Cook Airlines spokeswoman said, “A variety of factors, including air traffic control strikes in Europe and periods of severe weather, contributed to record levels of disruption across the industry in 2018.
"Unlike many airlines, we almost never cancel flights because we want get our customers away on holiday, so these factors had a particular impact on our punctuality figures.
“We had a significant period of growth in 2018 with new routes and slots at UK airports.
"Our customers are our first priority when a flight is delayed and we always want to get them on holiday on time.
"We have taken steps to improve punctuality this year, including operating more reserve aircraft to help get flights back on time quickly if delays happen.”
The average delay for all flights from all UK airports was 14.5 minutes.
It rose from 13.8 minutes for 2017, 15.9 minutes for 2018, before dropping to 11.3 minutes for the first quarter of 2019.
That’s good news - but could be partly explained by the fact the figures for this year don’t include the summer holiday rush, which tends to push up delays at the airport.
Looking at flights out of all UK airports, Vueling had the worst record of any airline with more than 5,000 total departures.
The carrier had an average delay of 24.2 minutes. Thomas Cook (21.0 minutes), Norwegian Air (20.5 minutes), Wizz Air (20.5 minutes) and Air Portugal (19.9 minutes) were next.
SAS (9.2 minutes), Cathay Pacific (9.3 minutes) and Delta Airlines (9.6 minutes) had the best records for all flights out of UK airports.
