- The majority of Europe’s most punctual airlines are small-sized, regional carriers. A notable exception is Spain’s Vueling withonly 0.85% of its 217,769 arrivals being cancelled. The airline posted an 18.33% delay rate.
- Airlines with the most flights typically are among those with the worst on-time performance and this shows with several European industry giants being ranked among the worst carriers. British Airways ranks 4th on the list with 39.33% of delayed and cancelled arrivals; Easyjet is 6th with a 36.76% delay/cancellation rate; and Lufthansa is 10th worst in Europe with 32.66% of its arrivals either delayed or cancelled.
- Europe was seriously affected by labour strikes, technical outages and harsh weather conditions on multiple occasions in 2023, resulting in an increased number of flight delays and cancellations. Many of those issues have not been resolved in 2024.
- The Ukraine-Russia war has harmed the aviation industry in Europe by limiting air space, terminating some routes and making existing ones longer as a safety precaution. The implications of the conflict have affected both airlines and airports.
This analysis was made using monthly on-time performance statistics for European airlines and airports from OAG. To avoid comparing major airports and carriers to small companies with just a handful of flights per week, we only included airlines and airports with more than 20,000 flights for 2023. Then, we ranked them based on the percentage of delayed and cancelled flights they reported over the past twelve months.
For more detailed information about each of the airports and airlines, check the full report here. It also features the best airlines and airports and the complete methodology we used to create these rankings. Feel free to use any data or graphics by providing a proper attribution link to the original report.
