British Airways. Photo: Shutterstock Flight Performance Peaks. In the first quarter of 2025, 86% of British Airways' flights departed on time from its base at London Heathrow, marking the airline's highest punctuality performance. This is in contrast to just 46% in 2008.
During the quarter, British Airways achieved over 90% on-time departures on 38 out of 89 operational days.
In April, two-thirds of all the airline's flights leaving Heathrow departed before their scheduled time. This is double the number of flights during the same period in 2023 and nearly 20% more than in 2024.
Sean Doyle, British Airways' Chairman and CEO, stated, "Improving operational performance is a key component of our investment program because we understand the impact delays and disruptions can have on our customers. While disruptions in our flights are often outside of our control, our focus has been on improving factors we can directly influence and implementing the best solutions for our customers. This is why we invested £100 million in our operational resilience, funded technology and tools, and developed a better way of working on the ground at Heathrow, as well as creating 600 additional operational roles at the airport."
In 2023, British Airways announced a major investment program of £7 billion, aimed at delivering a world-class customer experience and better on-time performance.
A significant part of the strategy was a £100 million investment in developing a range of digital tools and apps aimed at improving operational performance. More than 100 data scientists are now employed at the airline, working on projects across the business, and overall, around 830 change programs have been launched.
Technical experts developed an app that now allows the airline to allocate aircraft landings at Heathrow based on real-time analysis of onward flight plans for passengers on any given flight, thereby reducing missed connections and disruptions. This has saved 160,000 minutes of delays.
A real-time weather program, which proactively reroutes aircraft to avoid areas of bad weather, is also in use. It can communicate directly with air traffic control centers across Europe to find and create more efficient routes, preventing a total of 243,000 minutes of delays.
Technology-based programs that help make the best decisions during periods of disruption have also proven to have a significant positive impact.
In the coming months, additional tools and programs will also be integrated into operations to further enhance performance. These include new apps for pilots, cabin crew, and aircraft dispatch teams to help accelerate aircraft departures.