Is this Britain's least punctual plane?

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Wizz Air flight W62206 from Luton to Budapest is being labelled Britain's least punctual plane - because it never left on time.

Since 1 June 2013, the plane has racked up a staggering 293 consecutive late departures, according to flight data specialists EUclaim.

The A320 makes the 927 mile journey every day except Christmas Day, and has beenbe delayed for everything from two minutes to 12 hours and 18 minutes. On one occasion it was cancelled altogether.

Customers were given all sorts of explanations for delays (although none as colourful as the American Airlines delay in February). A reviewer on airlinequality.com said their flight was delayed in November for over three hours because their plane was used to do an 'extra flight'.

Another said their flight was delayed for 12 hours in July last year because of a problem with the plane, and another in June said they were delayed for seven hours with no explanation.

The only silver lining for the thousands of passengers hit by this unusually delayed service, is that some of them will be entitled to compensation. Flight delay compensation specialist Bott & Co says passengers on nine of these flights would be entitled to compensation of £215 each under EU laws.
These include the one which was cancelled, and eight others which arrived more than three hours late.

The law in question is EU Regulation 261/2004. It means that if your flight is delayed by more than three hours, or it's cancelled, or you are denied boarding, you can claim compensation of between £215 and £520. The sum depends on how long you were delayed and how long the flight is. The highest compensation is reserved for those who were delayed for more than four hours on a flight of 3,500km or more.

The only provisos are that the plane has to either leave the EU, or be an EU plane arriving in the EU, and that the delay cannot be due to any extraordinary circumstances - so bad weather or industrial unrest of any kind are excluded.

Paul Hinchliffe, Managing Partner at Bott & Co says: "Consumers in other EU countries tend to be familiar with their rights under Regulation 261, but that's not the case here in the UK. We want to change this and help the British public to know their rights and receive the compensation rightly due to them for flight delays and cancellations."

If you have been delayed at any time since February 2005, you can check with the firm's online calculator to see whether you are entitled to compensation - and if so, how much. Then you can choose to claim this compensation yourself, or pay for expert help.

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