Flight punctuality took a battering from the bad weather at major UK airports in the last three months of last year, official figures have shown.

More than a third of charter flights were delayed in October-December 2010 while 32% of scheduled flights were delayed, said the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

Scheduled flight punctuality at Luton airport dipped to 64% compared with 76% in the same period in 2009.

At Heathrow, where the pre-Christmas snow led to travel chaos, the October-December 2010 punctuality figure fell 10% to 65%.

The airports monitored were Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, Stansted, London City, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow, with figures covering arrivals and departures.

Overall, 68% of scheduled flights at the 10 airports were on time (leaving or arriving up to 15 minutes late) in October-December 2010, compared with 77% in the same period of 2009. On-time charter flights at the airports fell from 71% in the last three months of 2009 to 63% in October-December 2010.

The average scheduled flight delays rose from 15 minutes in October-December 2009 to 21 minutes in October-December 2010, while the average charter delay increased from 24 minutes to 38 minutes.

Among the 75 destinations with the most passengers, scheduled flights to and from Madrid recorded the worst on-time performance (51%) and had the highest average delay (32 minutes). Flights to and from Guernsey had the highest on-time performance (82%), and flights to and from Billund in Denmark had the shortest average delay (14 minutes).

CAA group regulatory policy director Iain Osborne said: "During the final three months of last year, nearly a third of flights were more than 15 minutes late. The worst performers were charter flights from Edinburgh and Manchester, with scheduled flights from Heathrow and Luton also performing badly.

"While some of the fall in punctuality can be explained by the terrible weather in November and December, that doesn't explain it all."