Aer Lingus 18th in OAG’s top 20 rankings of airline and airport punctuality, Ryanair excluded from findings

Aer Lingus has ranked 18^th in a punctuality league ranking global airline’s on-time performance for 2016. The Irish airline had an 83.97pc on-time performance from the Offical Airlines Guide air travel intelligence group, narrowly ahead of Gulf Air and Jet2.com.

Ryanair did not co-operate with the report and could have topped the  European chart had it provided more of its schedules. Ryanair’s own releases regularly report that 89-91pc of its flights arrive on time. OAG ranks airlines for which it has 80pc or more of their schedules, but Ryanair provided OAG with less than 80pc so it could not be included.

America’s Hawaiian Airlines ranked first ahead of and Panama’s Copa Airlines and larger airlines includes KLM (3^rd), Qantas (4^th) and Japan Airlines (5^th).

Iberia was the highest-ranked carrier in the IAG group, coming in in eighth place. Delta was the best-performing major American name, and placed 15^th.

On time performance is classified in the survey as a plane which departs or arrives within 15 minutes of its scheduled time.

Broken down by region Aer Lingus scored highly in the European/Middle Eastern market. It was ranked in eighth place, with KLM topping the poll, followed by Flybe, Iberia, Monarch Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Finnair and Transavia.

Monarch Airlines topped the low cost category, with an on time performance ranking of 85.67pc, followed by GOL, Transavia, Jet2.com, Germanwings and Westjet.

EasyJet was at 15^th, with a 74.73pc on time performance, but Ryanair did not feature in the top 20.

The survey also ranked airports, with Newcastle in England topping the small airport category; Birmingham in England in first place in the medium category; Surabaya in Indonesia was the best of the large category; and Tokyo Haneda topped the major-sized facility category.

The survey was carried out by London-headquartered OAG, best known for its airline schedules database which holds future and historical flight details for more than 900 airlines and over 4,000 airports. It has offices situated in the China, Japan, Singapore and United States.

.The air travel intelligence company that “provides timely and actionable digital information and applications to the world’s airlines, airports, government agencies and travel-related service companies”. The full findings are contained here.

OAG boss John Grant said: “This year’s report draws upon the largest ever number of flights tracked in a single year. Those airlines and airports that have achieved the highest level of success are rightly acknowledged and deserve our recognition.”