Going to Europe This Summer? Brace for Flight Delays
Airport, which were among the worst hit by disruption last year. Punctuality has improved, though, at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. One silver lining in Europe this summer is fewer cancellations.
In the May-to-August period, 0.9% of all flights were scrapped, compared with 1.4% in the same months last year, FlightAware data shows. Flight delays at the 50 biggest U.S. airports also rose during the May-to-August period, though the increase—up to about 26% of all flights from around 24% last year, according to FlightAware data—isn’t as steep as in Europe.
The causes of delays this summer “are issues that are outside the remits of airport operators," said Olivier Jankovec, director general of Airports Council International Europe, a trade body. He added that airports had broadly succeeded in staffing up in areas they control, like security, in an effort to avoid a repeat of last year’s disruption. Staffing was a major issue last summer, particularly in positions like baggage handling.
After shedding workers during the pandemic, airlines and airports couldn’t get them all back. This year, the aviation industry has had more time to prepare but is much busier. The average number of daily flights across Europe has reached more than 27,000 this year, up 12% versus 2022, according to Eurocontrol, the continent’s air-traffic agency.
“We have the resources that are necessary to fly, but the problem is that we are in a very tough environment," Luis Gallego, chief executive officer of British Airways parent IAG, said on a call with reporters in late June. Air-traffic control issues, strikes and war-related airspace disruption were among the challenges he cited. The disruption has led to an increase in costs of about 140 million euros,
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