UK airline cancelling flights at last minute named and it's not Ryanair

Two budget airlines have been pitted against each other for last minute cancellations - and only one has come out on top.

According to the UK consumer champion, Which? beats easyJet for reliability. The group states that while both airlines have improved their cancellations rates over the last year, Ryanair is the "slightly" better choice.

The watchdog website added: “In the 12 months up to September 2023 Ryanair cancelled 0.80% – that's roughly average for the carriers we looked at." However, fared noticeably worse, cancelling 2% within just 24 hours of departure. According to the consumer champion, many more flights were cancelled with a few days' or weeks' notice.

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Which? based its calculations on Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) data on punctuality and cancellations. At the same time, it also checked the cost of baggage and measured legroom to determine the best airline for every budget.

Between October 2023 and September 2024 easyJet cancelled 0.9% of flights at short notice, while the figure for Ryanair was just 0.2%, says Which? Thus Ryanair is the marginally better option for budget-conscious travellers worried about reliability.

Ryanair's slight advantage for time-conscious travellers was also noted in Which?'s punctuality data. According to the group, 67% of easyJet flights departed within 15 minutes of the scheduled time, while the same figure was 65% for Ryanair - making Ryanair the better option by a hair once again.

The results are somewhat surprising, considering easyJet usually bests Ryanair when it comes to the group's list of the best and worst airlines. However, Which? says easyJet "alienated" many of its loyal passengers in 2023 when it cancelled thousands of flights.

The Mirror reached out to both easyJet and Ryanair for comment on Which's flight cancellation data and overall assessment. Ryanair has not returned any comment, but easyJet shared the following statement: "Our focus is delivering a punctual and reliable service for the quarter of a million customers we fly daily from some of the world’s busiest major airports.

"This year we are looking forward to biggest ever summer with 100 million passengers are choosing to fly with us this year, and with our customer satisfaction scores up year on year it’s clear that our customers value our great value for money and friendly service," they added.

While easyJet and Ryanair are essentially matched in reliability, one better way to ensure your flight arrives on time may have more to do with when you fly.

The Huffington Post in partnership with AirHelp, an air claim support website, conducted a probability study to determine what time of day flights are most likely to be delayed.

According to the research, most flight delays occur at 6pm local time. Contrastingly, the probability of a flight delay is lowest (20% or below) from 6am-11am local time. This is reportedly because early morning flights have less runway traffic to deal with, there are fewer planes already in the air and because planes can be prepped the night before.

The study revealed that the day of the week you’re flying is also related to the likelihood of a delay. While it may be cheaper to fly on a weekday, the volume of commuting business travellers between Monday and Friday can increase congestion in the air.

The Huffington Post and AirHelp observed that the highest amount of delays occurred on Monday and Friday, with Friday carrying the highest probability of a delay (almost 30%). In comparison, Monday had a 25% probability of delay and Saturday has the lowest probability of delay across the week (18%).