Dublin among best airports

Dublin Airport has emerged among the best-performing European airports so far this year, Europe's worst year ever for hold-ups, according to the Association of European Airlines (AEA).

As holiday-makers across Europe struggled with flight delays, those travelling through Vienna, Dublin and Larnaca, as well as London's two main airports, had little difficulty, the AEA says.

While delays at European airports set new records in May and June, June was particularly bad, with 37.3 per cent of all flights within Europe departing more than 15 minutes late. The AEA said the greatest cause was "infrastructural bottlenecks", particularly in air traffic control.

Once again Malpensa, Milan's second airport, caused some of the worst delays. Barcelona and Madrid were next, with Rome, Munich and Paris Charles de Gaulle also high on the list.

Dublin did well to be included among the highest performers, particularly as the Dublin-London route now exceeds the LondonParis route in terms of traffic, making it Europe's busiest. The best records were held by Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Stockholm.

The AEA said it could not be absolute in its predictions for the rest of the year but said there was "already enough evidence to hand to mark down 1999 not only as the worst year on record but the worst by a long way".