Flight Delay Causes at Selected Visegrad Group International Airports

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse the flight delay causes at base airports (Prague, Brno, Ostrava, Budapest, Bratislava, Katowice, and Warsaw), with a special focus on a selected airline company operating in the central European region. To process the data, methods of multivariable statistics, namely tests of independence in contingency tables, the Kruskal-Wallis testing, cluster analysis, and correspondence analysis were used. Apparently, both charter and scheduled flights have the same percentage of delayed flights, delays occur most frequently in June, and Boeing 737-800 reported delays more frequently than Airbus A320. The research has shown that the highest number of delayed flights occurs in Budapest, the lowest number in Katowice. During the night, short delays occur most often, long delays most frequently arise in the evening. The most common cause for longer delays is technical maintenance or an aircraft defect and previously delayed flights. The flight dispatch by supplier companies is the source accounting only for rather short delays. Overall, the delayed flights frequency increases with the size of the city and the airport.