Only 48 per cent of Easyjet's flights from Gatwick, its main base, departed on time last month, making the British budget airline less efficient than Air Zimbabwe, according to statistics obtained by the Sunday Times. Air Zimbabwe managed 50 per cent, while British Airways hit 85.7 per cent.

The revelation comes at the end of a week during which Michael O'Leary, chief executive of the rival budget airline Ryanair, had to pay £50,000 to settle a libel claim by Easyjet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou.

O'Leary and Ryanair had taken out newspaper ads claiming that Sir Stelios had taken a personal decision not to publish Easyjet's monthly punctuality statistics. O'Leary was forced to make a grovelling apology after accepting that Sir Stelios, despite being the largest single shareholder, was merely a non-executive director by the time the decision was taken and had played no part in it.

An airline industry source told the Sunday Times: "They [Easyjet] are Gatwick's biggest airline and when they have a bad time it affects the whole image of the airport... They do seem to have taken their eye off the ball."