How punctual were the routes we track most? Week to 7 October 2026

Every week, a handful of routes make up most of the flights our readers follow. Looking back at 1 to 7 October, we pulled together the figures for our four most-tracked routes to see how punctual they actually were. The numbers give a useful snapshot, but as with any single week, they come with some caveats worth bearing in mind.

Route	Flights	On time	Late	Cancelled	On-time share
London (LHR) to Frankfurt-am-Main (FRA)	67	43	24	9	64%
London (LHR) to Dubai (DXB)	40	28	12	0	70%
London (LHR) to New York (JFK)	21	14	7	0	67%
Dubai (DXB) to London (LHR)	11	9	2	0	82%

How we measured: these are flights DelayAhead recorded between 1 October 2026 and 7 October 2026 (local departure dates). A flight counts as on time when it reached the gate less than 15 minutes after its scheduled arrival time. When we only have the landing time (no gate time), a landing on or before schedule counts as on time and one 15 minutes or more late counts as late; landings 1 to 14 minutes late are unclear and left out, like flights whose arrival time we could not confirm, cancelled flights are counted separately, and only routes with at least 10 measured flights are shown. These are the routes we track most, not a ranking of all routes.

Which routes did best

Dubai to London stood out with an 82% on-time share, though this is based on only 11 flights, so a single late or early arrival can move the percentage by several points. London to Dubai, in the other direction, had a larger sample of 40 flights and a 70% on-time share, giving a somewhat steadier picture.

London to New York came in at 67% on time across 21 flights, with 14 arriving on time and 7 arriving late. That's a reasonable sample size for a week, though still small enough that next week's figure could look quite different.

Which route struggled most

London to Frankfurt had the lowest on-time share of the four, at 64%, from the largest sample of the week at 67 flights. Of those, 43 arrived on time, 24 were late, and 9 were cancelled. The higher cancellation count here is worth noting on its own. Cancellations aren't counted as late or on time, but they clearly affect anyone who had booked a seat on one of those flights.

It's tempting to look for a single reason why one route did worse than another in a given week, but with this data alone we can't say what caused any individual delay or cancellation. A busy short-haul route like London to Frankfurt will naturally see more day-to-day variation than a route with fewer, longer flights.

Why a week is only a snapshot

A week of flight records is a useful indicator, but it isn't a reliable long-term average. Smaller samples, like the 11 flights on the Dubai to London route, are especially sensitive to one or two unusual days. Even the larger samples here, in the 20 to 70 flight range, only cover a single week, so weather patterns, holiday travel, or a temporary air traffic control issue in that period could all nudge the figures without reflecting how the route normally performs.

If you want a better sense of how a specific flight is likely to go, rather than a weekly average, it helps to look at the individual aircraft and its recent history. Our guide on where is my plane coming from explains how a late-arriving aircraft earlier in the day can affect your own departure.

What usually causes delays

None of the figures above point to a specific cause, but it's worth knowing the common reasons flights run late in general:

• Late-arriving aircraft, where the plane due to operate your flight is delayed on an earlier journey
• Busy airports, where congestion on the ground or in the air adds time to taxiing, take-off or landing
• Weather, including storms, fog or high winds at either the departure or arrival airport
• Air traffic control restrictions, where controllers space out flights to manage traffic safely

Any of these can affect a route on a given day, and they often combine. A storm at one airport, for example, can create late-arriving aircraft that then affect flights elsewhere later in the day. For more on how this chain of effects works, see our guide on late arriving aircraft.

Using these figures sensibly

If you're flying one of these routes soon, treat these percentages as general background rather than a prediction for your specific flight. The safest approach is still to check your own flight closer to the day. Our tool at check a flight follows the actual aircraft assigned to your journey, which tells you far more than a route's average from the week before. And if you're heading to the airport to collect someone, our guide on picking someone up at the airport covers how to time your arrival sensibly.