With the summer holiday season well underway and families booked to visit popular destinations around the world, the last thing holidaymakers want is a delayed flight.

So data brought to you in our interactive search tool below offers some food for thought as to which flight you should book if you want the greatest chance of getting to your destination without delay, and avoid spending part of the holiday in an airport.

The data shows some of the worst and best routes from Heathrow for punctuality.

Passengers preparing to fly between Heathrow Airport and Turkmenistan can count on their flight being delayed.

The service to Ashkhabad is one of the most delayed in Britain, taking off at least 15 minutes late nearly three out of four times.

The flight operated by Turkmenistan Airlines has had an average delay of 74.5 minutes across the 259 times it has flown since the start of 2015 – 73% of these flights departed at least 15 minutes later than scheduled.

The second worst performance was the Air Algerie flight from Heathrow to Algiers, with flights at least 15 minutes late 63.9% of the time.

This was followed closely by Tunisair's Heathrow to Tunis service taking off late 62.8% of the time.

British Airways the best... and among the worst

There are three British Airways (BA) routes listed in the 10 most delayed services from the west London airport.

They are flights from Heathrow to Accra in Ghana; Heathrow to Kalamata in Greece and popular holiday destination Malaga in Spain.

Strangely enough the most punctual service from Heathrow also involves BA and Greece with flights to Lemnos only 15+ minutes late 3.8% of the time since the start of 2015, with an average delay of under three minutes.

The second best record came from Delta Airlines' flight to New York (Newark), with only 4.5% of flights - fewer than one in 20 - facing a delay of 15 minutes or more.

The data is from official records of all flights logged with the Civil Aviation Authority.

Since the start of 2015 across the UK the average flight delay has been 13.2 minutes, with 23% of flights on major routes taking off 15 minutes or more late.

Top 10 most delayed routes to and from Heathrow Airport and % of flights at least 15 minutes late since Jan 2015

HEATHROW TO ASHKHABAD IN TURKMENISTAN - TURKMENISTAN AIRLINES - 73%
HEATHROW TO ALGIERS IN ALGERIA - AIR ALGERIE - 63.9%
HEATHROW TO TUNIS IN TUNISIA - TUNISAIR - 62.8%
HEATHROW TO LAHORE IN PAKISTAN - PAKISTAN INTL AIRLINES - 59.4%
HEATHROW TO ACCRA IN GHANA - BRITISH AIRWAYS PLC - 58.6%
HEATHROW TO DHAKHA IN BANGLADESH - BIMAN BANGLADESH AIRLINES - 51.9%
HEATHROW TO AMMAN IN JORDAN - ROYAL JORDANIAN - 51.4%
HEATHROW TO KALAMATA IN GREECE - BRITISH AIRWAYS PLC - 50%
HEATHROW TO MALAGA IN SPAIN - BRITISH AIRWAYS PLC - 48.1%
HEATHROW TO KUWAIT IN KUWAIT - KUWAIT AIRWAYS - 47.8%