BRITAIN'S airports have been engulfed in chaos following a staff shortage crisis which has brought misery to hundreds of thousands of travellers.
Scores of flights have been cancelled in the last month – with holidaymakers seeing dream trips torn up before their eyes.
While thousands have seen their luggage not arrive on time and for many, it's just been lost.
easyJet and TUI have been major culprits, but they say the post-COVID demand for holidays has been impossible to keep up with while they don't have enough staff.
So what is the best way to get around the airport chaos and how can you make sure you jet off without too much hassle?
BEST TIME TO FLY
In data supplied by FlightRadar24 and OAG which analysed flight cancellations between May 7 and June 6, the best time to fly is late morning between 10am and 1pm, The Telegraph reports.
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Only an average 28 flights were sacked off between 11am and 11.59am, or 0.75 per cent of flights scheduled in that hour – making it the best time to fly.
While 6pm was by far the worst – seeing a whopping 138 cancelled flights between 6pm and 6.59pm.
That's 3 per cent of all flights in that hour.
BEST DAY TO FLY
Data suggests it's best to hop on a flight later in the week.
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In fact Wednesday to Saturday were the best days to avoid airport chaos in the month up to June 6.
Saturday is in fact your best bet, which saw only an average 157 departures cancelled.
Meanwhile Sunday was the worst day to jet off – with a monstrous 256 UK departure cancellations.
It means two per cent of all flights scheduled on that day were cancelled, so it's best to avoid them,
BEST AIRLINES
By far the best-performing major airline was Ryanair, with only three cancelled departures from the UK between May 7 and June 6.
That means only one in 4,366 were grounded.
Jet2.com has also managed to fly past the chaos experienced by other airlines with only five cancellations – one in 1,037.
Turkish Airlines and Brussels Airlines managed to fly through the storm in the month up to June 6, too.
Turkey's national flag carrier only saw one in 608 flights struck off, while the Belgian airline had one in 309 flights cancelled.
But avoid KLM at all costs.
In 1,709 flights – the Dutch carrier cancelled 87 departures from the UK in the measured period.
That's a whopping one in 20 flights (5.1 percent).
Flybe and easyJet also scored badly – registering one in 25 and one in 26 flight cancellations respectively.
BEST AIRPORT
London Stansted came out on top as having the lowest number of flight cancellations.
The airport near Bishops Stortford, Essex,- which serves more than 160 destinations in Europe, Africa and Asia – only cancelled
Birmingham, Leeds Bradford and Liverpool Airports all scored highly as well – recording some of the lowest cancellation rates.
And avoid London City Airport if you can, they had 75 flights cancelled, or one in 30 scheduled departures cut.
London Gatwick should also be avoided – the Crawley-based airport had the second worst record for cancelling flights with one in 33 getting the axe.
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In short, pick a late-morning rather than an evening flight, fly in the second half of the week but never on Sundays and take Stansted over Gatwick.
Ryanair over easyJet if you’re flying budget and sun yourself in Croatia or Malta over Italy or Spain.
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