Liverpool John Lennon Airport (JLA) achieved one of the highest levels of flight punctuality compared with 10 other top UK airports monitored by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

Figures published by JLA on its own website show that 90% of arrivals and departures at the airport were either early or up to 15 minutes late, thereby meeting the CAA’s definition of punctual. The best performing CAA monitored airport was London City at 88% while the average for all 10 monitored airports was 79%, down 1% on the previous year.

While the CAA didn’t monitor JLA in 2014, the airport has collated and published its own comparable figures. However, the CAA told the ECHO that it has recently begun monitoring JLA and will shortly be publishing punctuality figures that include it.

A spokesman for the CAA said: 'Since October 2014, the CAA has been monitoring a further 14 UK airports and these will be included in our data and analysis moving forward.'

Colin Swaine, operations director for JLA said: 'Staff here at Liverpool work hard to ensure that flights operate on time, focusing on key operational aspects of the business to give our airline customers the highest levels of service.

'This hard work continues to really pay dividends for our passengers too, who can book with confidence, knowing that more flights operate on time from here than at many of our competitors.'

According to the CAA, the average delay across all scheduled passenger flights in 2014 was 12 minutes, the same as 2013.

The news comes as the latest CAA figures show the number of passengers using UK airports increased to 238m in 2014, just short of the 2007 peak, before the financial crisis set in.

Out of the 10 CAA monitored airports, Newcastle, Manchester and Heathrow saw improvements in punctuality compared to 2013. The other seven airports saw punctuality drop, with the biggest fall being at Luton, where the decline was 5%.

Iain Osborne, group director for regulatory policy at the CAA, said: 'The industry has had to deal with some unseasonably poor weather and a number of overseas air traffic control strikes, both beyond their control.

'With this in mind we expect the industry to continue to build on the overall positive trajectory and to do all they can to improve punctuality performance further.'

Source: LiverpoolEcho