Airport meltdown as EVERY flight leaving Heathrow is delayed

During a morning of chaos, every single plane leaving the airport was late. A survey of 100 departures between 09.40 and 13.05 the day before yesterday showed that none left on time and 14 per cent of them were delayed by more than an hour.

Live flight information boards on the official website of BAA, which runs the airport, showed both long-haul and local flights delayed by up to two and a half hours.

The most lengthy hold-up involved a British Airways flight to Newcastle, which took off two hours and 38 minutes late - longer than the flight time.

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Passengers waited a staggering 2,434 years in total at Heathrow last year because of flight delays

This was followed by a flight to Delhi, which left two hours and 23 minutes behind schedule. Four out of ten late flights were operated by British Airways.

While the hold-ups might not seem dramatic to families used to marathon waits for holiday charter jets, they are a major annoyance to business passengers on scheduled flights who have appointments to keep and depend on punctuality.

BAA defended itself over the delays and said there were several reasons why planes could be late arriving and taking off.

A spokesman for the airport operator said: "On this particular day, air traffic control chose to slow down planes around Heathrow because of high winds. However, it is very difficult to pinpoint the causes of delays as there are hundreds of reasons - from a passenger late in a terminal to overcrowding at the airport."

She said that the opening of Terminal 5 next year would ease congestion within the airport buildings but would not affect runway congestion.

"Currently Heathrow operates to nearly 100 per cent of its capacity. The possibility of a third runway will mean the option of more flights, not necessarily spreading them out between runways."

During the same period on Wednesday, 87 per cent of 100 monitored arrivals were late, some of which BAA blamed on high winds.

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List of shame: The delayed flights and the length of time that each was delayed

The worst delay was to a flight from Jamaica, which was due in at 9.55am but did not arrive until 7pm. The BAA spokesman stressed that none of the delays was down to the actions of the demonstrators outside.

British Airways' own internal figures show that fewer than a third of its flights - 29 per cent - currently leave on time. And only 60 per cent leave within 15 minutes of their scheduled departure time, one of the worst performances among major airlines.

Passengers waited a staggering 2,434 years in total at Heathrow last year because of flight delays.