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Best airline to United Kingdom

Ranked on one measure only: how often each airline's flights on United Kingdom routes actually arrived on time. Not seat width, not service — punctuality, from the regulator's own file.

Most punctual on United Kingdom routes

SAS

83.8% on time across 17,609 flights

# Airline Flights On time
1 SAS 17,609 83.8%
2 Icelandair 5,156 82.9%
3 Virgin Atlantic 32,447 81.6%
4 Loganair 79,106 79.3%
5 Iberia 7,827 79%
6 British Airways 371,626 78.1%
7 Wizz Air 20,459 77.9%
8 Wizz Air UK 30,805 77.7%
9 KLM Cityhopper 8,049 77.6%
10 Singapore Airlines 5,602 77.1%
11 BA CityFlyer 51,928 76.9%
12 Qatar Airways 14,526 76.5%
13 Air Canada 8,556 76.5%
14 Emerald Airlines UK 20,975 76.4%
15 United Airlines 21,248 76.3%
16 Vueling 30,082 76%
17 Turkish Airlines 16,959 75.8%
18 Wizz Air Malta 19,584 75.6%
19 Aer Lingus 70,397 75%
20 American Airlines 20,650 74.2%
21 Finnair 7,445 74%
22 Lufthansa 29,880 73.5%
23 easyJet 504,254 73.4%
24 Etihad Airways 5,636 73.2%
25 Ryanair UK 47,593 72.8%
26 Aurigny 14,600 72.8%
27 Emirates 18,111 72.5%
28 Eurowings 18,135 72%
29 Ryanair 405,700 71.8%
30 KLM 47,580 71.5%
31 Air France 18,299 71%
32 easyJet Europe 25,003 70.3%
33 SunExpress 12,814 69%
34 BA Euroflyer 36,549 68.7%
35 Jet2 163,841 67.9%
36 Swiss International Air Lines 19,533 66.7%
37 Blue Islands 7,683 65.1%
38 Brussels Airlines 5,853 64.6%
39 TUI Airways 77,106 59%
40 Air India 8,177 45.2%

Busiest routes into United Kingdom

EDI → LHR Ingliston to London 10,153 flights · 77.45% on time C LHR → EDI London to Ingliston 10,149 flights · 78.37% on time C LHR → GLA London to Glasgow 9,444 flights · 79.11% on time C GLA → LHR Glasgow to London 9,431 flights · 84.72% on time B DUB → LHR Dublin to London (IE–GB) 8,169 flights · 76.57% on time C JFK → LHR New York to London (US–GB) 8,071 flights · 79.55% on time C AMS → LHR Amsterdam to London (NL–GB) 7,536 flights · 76.86% on time C FRA → LHR Frankfurt am Main to London (DE–GB) 6,790 flights · 77.68% on time C LHR → MAN London to Manchester 6,764 flights · 75.53% on time C MAN → LHR Manchester to London 6,758 flights · 71.17% on time D DUB → MAN Dublin to Manchester (IE–GB) 6,511 flights · 76.53% on time C MAD → LHR Madrid to London (ES–GB) 6,385 flights · 79.88% on time B

What "best" means here, and what it does not

Punctuality is one dimension of a good airline and not the one most people would name first. It is, however, the only one that is measured the same way for every carrier and published by somebody with no stake in the answer — which makes it the one worth ranking on.

It is also route-specific. An airline near the bottom of this table may be excellent elsewhere; what the table says is how it ran on these particular routes over this particular period. The same list, worst first →