Flight Diversion Statistics: Understanding Passenger Impact in 2026
In 2025, 21,106 US domestic airline flights landed somewhere other than the airport printed on the ticket. That is about 1 in every 367 scheduled flights, the highest diversion rate in BTS delay-cause data, which goes back to 2003. January to July 2026 ran ahead of the same months of 2025.
A diversion is rarer than a delay or a cancellation, but it tends to hurt more when it happens. Passengers can sit on a tarmac in a city they never planned to visit, miss connections and reach home hours late. This page gathers the numbers that matter: how often flights divert in the US and Europe, which months, airlines and airports see the most, why aircraft divert, how long the detour lasts, and what passengers can claim afterwards. It draws on US Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) data through July 2026, EUROCONTROL, IATA, the FAA and peer-reviewed medical research.
Key Flight Diversion Statistics at a Glance
- 21,106 US domestic flights were diverted in 2025, 0.273% of 7.74 million scheduled arrivals.
Source: BTS, Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes, 2025 - 2025 had the highest US diversion rate since BTS delay-cause records began in 2003, up from 0.250% in 2024.
Source: BTS, Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes, 2003-2025 - 14,308 US flights were diverted from January to July 2026, a rate of 0.314% against 0.301% in the same months of 2025.
Source: BTS, Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes, 2026 - July 2026 set a monthly record with 3,615 diversions, 0.518% of flights, beating the previous high of 0.483% in July 2025.
Source: BTS, Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes, 2026 - Summer flights divert almost twice as often as autumn flights: 0.330% in June to August against 0.172% in September to November (2015-2025 average).
Source: BTS, Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes, 2015-2025 - JetBlue had the highest diversion rate of the 21 carriers BTS tracked in 2025, at 0.382%; Hawaiian Airlines had the lowest, at 0.111%.
Source: BTS, Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes, 2025 - Dallas/Fort Worth had the most diverted inbound flights of any US airport in 2025: 1,572, followed by Denver with 1,483.
Source: BTS, Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes, 2025 - 4.6% of flights bound for Aspen, Colorado were diverted in 2025, 355 of 7,684 scheduled arrivals.
Source: BTS, Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes, 2025 - 91.0% of diverted US flights eventually reached their original destination in 2025; 11.2% first landed back at the airport they had left.
Source: BTS, Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance, 2025 - The median diverted flight arrived 3 hours 34 minutes late, and 63.5% arrived at least 3 hours late.
Source: BTS, Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance, 2025 - A 2025 study of 77,790 in-flight medical events found 1 event per 212 flights on US airlines, with 1.7% of events ending in a diversion.
Source: Alves et al., JAMA Network Open, 2025 - Neurological problems caused 40.7% of medical diversions in that study, and cardiovascular conditions 26.9%.
Source: Alves et al., JAMA Network Open, 2025 - 7.3% of in-flight medical emergencies led to a diversion in a widely cited 2008-2010 study of 11,920 cases.
Source: Peterson et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2013 - Airlines reported 1 unruly passenger incident every 355 flights in 2025, an improvement from 1 in 307 in 2024.
Source: IATA, Unruly Passengers Fact Sheet, June 2026 - 0.32% of flights to the EUROCONTROL network area were diverted in 2024, over 30,000 of 9.4 million flights.
Source: EUROCONTROL, Standard Inputs for Economic Analyses, 2026 - One diverted intercontinental flight costs an estimated 82,000 EUR, against 55,000 EUR for a continental narrow-body flight of 1,500 to 3,000 km.
Source: EUROCONTROL, Standard Inputs for Economic Analyses, 2026
US Diverted Flights by Year
BTS counts a flight as diverted when it lands at an airport other than its scheduled destination. The rate is small, but it has moved in one direction since the pandemic. The chart shows both the full-year rate and the January-to-July rate, because 2026 data currently stops at July and summer months push the rate up.
Source: BTS, Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes, January 2015 to July 2026 (downloaded 24 September 2026). 2026 YTD = January to July 2026; the full-year rate is shown only for complete years.
After bottoming out at 0.167% in 2020, when airlines flew far fewer flights, the diversion rate climbed back to 0.250% in 2024 and then jumped to 0.273% in 2025. That is the highest full-year figure in BTS delay-cause data, which begins in June 2003; the previous peak was 0.261% in 2015. The raw count of 21,106 diversions was also a record. On a like-for-like basis, January to July 2026 is running at 0.314%, above the 0.301% recorded in the same seven months of 2025, which points to another record year unless the autumn is unusually calm.
Flight Diversions by Month and Season
Diversions follow the calendar closely. In 8 of the 11 years from 2015 to 2025 the monthly rate peaked in June or July, and in every one of those years it fell between August and September. The pattern mirrors the one for peak-season flight delays, and it lines up with the summer thunderstorm season.
Source: BTS, Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes, January 2024 to July 2026 (downloaded 24 September 2026).
July 2026 stands out: 3,615 diversions, or 0.518% of scheduled flights, the highest monthly rate and count in the BTS delay-cause series. July 2025 held the previous record at 0.483%. Pooling 2015 to 2025, July is the riskiest month at 0.351% and November the calmest at 0.162%. Across the whole June-to-August period, flights diverted at 0.330%, almost double the 0.172% autumn rate. BTS does not record why each flight was diverted, so the summer peak cannot be pinned on weather alone, but the peak coincides with the summer thunderstorm season.
Which Airlines Divert the Most Flights?
BTS publishes diversion counts for every carrier that reports on-time data. In 2025 that meant 21 airlines, from national brands to the regional carriers that fly under their names. Rates vary by a factor of more than three between the highest and the lowest.
Source: BTS, Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes, full year 2025. Diverted flights as a share of scheduled arrivals for each carrier.
JetBlue diverted 0.382% of its flights in 2025, the highest rate on the list, followed by Piedmont Airlines (0.334%), SkyWest (0.331%) and American Airlines (0.322%). Hawaiian Airlines had the lowest rate at 0.111%. Southwest diverted the most flights in absolute terms, 3,249, because it flies the most; its rate of 0.233% sat below the middle of the table. BTS does not break these figures down by cause, so the ranking reflects where and when each airline flies as much as how it operates. In the first seven months of 2026, American moved to the top at 0.407%. For context on the size of these carriers, see our guide to the largest airlines in North America.
US Airports With the Most Diverted Arrivals
BTS records each diversion against the airport the flight was trying to reach. Big hubs naturally lead on raw counts, so the chart shows the ten airports with the most diverted inbound flights in 2025, and the text below adds their rates.
Source: BTS, Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes, full year 2025. Counts are flights diverted while bound for each airport.
Dallas/Fort Worth (1,572 diversions, 0.497% of arrivals) and Denver (1,483, 0.467%) were well ahead of the other hubs in 2025. Among the 40 airports with at least 50,000 scheduled arrivals, Washington Reagan National had the highest rate at 0.528%, ahead of Dallas/Fort Worth and New York LaGuardia (0.479%). Salt Lake City had the lowest rate in that group, at 0.068%. Small airports can see far higher rates: 4.6% of flights to Aspen, a mountain airport in Colorado, were diverted in 2025, peaking at 57 of 603 flights in June. More airport data is in our US airports statistics.
How Long Diverted Passengers Wait
The BTS flight-level on-time file records what happened after each diversion, including whether the aircraft eventually reached its scheduled destination and how late it arrived. It covers 14 of the 21 reporting carriers. In 2025 it logged 19,258 diverted flights.
Source: AirAdvisor analysis of BTS Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance files, January to December 2025 (14 reporting carriers; 17,527 diverted flights that reached their scheduled destination).
91.0% of diverted flights in 2025 eventually reached their scheduled destination; the other 9.0% never completed the flight to their scheduled airport. Almost every diverted flight (99.1%) made a single unplanned landing, and 11.2% first went back to the airport they had departed from. For flights that did complete the journey, the median arrival delay was 3 hours 34 minutes. 63.5% arrived 3 hours or more behind schedule, and 21.9% arrived 6 hours or more late. The 2026 files so far look similar: from January to July, 86.0% of the 13,072 diverted flights completed the trip, with a median arrival delay of 3 hours 39 minutes. An earlier study of US domestic flights from 2018 to mid-2019 found that over 70% of diverted flights continued to their intended destination, with medical diversions recovering more often and more quickly than others.
Diverted on a flight to or from Europe?If you reached your final destination 3+ hours late on a flight departing the EU or UK, arriving in the EU on an EU airline, or arriving in the UK on a UK or EU airline, you could be owed up to 600 EUR under EU261 (up to 520 GBP under UK261).Check Your Flight
Why Flights Divert: Medical Emergencies, Weather and Unruly Passengers
No public US or European dataset assigns a cause to every diversion. Weather and airport closures, technical faults, fuel, sick passengers and disruptive behaviour all play a part, but only medical emergencies have been measured in large peer-reviewed studies. One of the most widely cited is a 2013 New England Journal of Medicine analysis of 11,920 in-flight medical emergencies on five airlines between 2008 and 2010.
Source: Peterson DC et al., Outcomes of Medical Emergencies on Commercial Airline Flights, New England Journal of Medicine, 30 May 2013 (Table 1; data January 2008 to October 2010).
In that study, 875 of the 11,920 emergencies (7.3%) ended in a diversion. Fainting or near-fainting was the most common problem and produced the most diversions (221), but serious conditions were far more likely to force an unplanned landing: 18.4% of cardiac cases and 16.4% of possible strokes were diverted, and 22 of 38 cardiac arrests (57.9%). Across all 11,920 emergencies, 25.8% of passengers with follow-up data were taken to hospital, 8.6% were admitted and 36 (0.3%) died, 31 of them after a cardiac arrest. A much larger 2025 study in JAMA Network Open, covering 84 airlines in 2022 and 2023, found medical events were reported far more often than in earlier studies but a smaller share of them ended in a diversion; per flight, the medical diversion rate was almost unchanged.
| Measure | NEJM study (2008-2010 data) | JAMA Network Open study (2022-2023 data) |
|---|---|---|
| Medical events analysed | 11,920 (5 airlines) | 77,790 (84 airlines) |
| Frequency | 1 per 604 flights | 1 per 212 flights (US-based airlines) |
| Share of events ending in a diversion | 7.3% | 1.7% |
| Leading reason for diversion | Syncope or presyncope (221 diversions) | Neurological conditions (40.7%) |
| Flights per medical diversion | About 8,230 (derived from 7,198,118 flights) | 8,138 (US-based airlines) |
The US cohort in the 2025 study recorded one medical diversion per 8,138 flights. BTS data for the same two years show one diversion of any kind roughly every 415 flights. Putting the two rates side by side gives a rough AirAdvisor estimate that medical cases account for around 5% of US diversions. Treat it as an order of magnitude only: the study counts events reported to one medical support provider on 9 US airlines, including international flights, while BTS covers domestic flights by all reporting carriers. Unruly passengers are another known trigger. IATA reports 1 unruly incident per 355 flights in 2025, down from 1 in 307 in 2024, and the Court of Justice of the EU has confirmed that diverting to offload a violent passenger can count as an extraordinary circumstance. In the US, the FAA opened 1,099 unruly-passenger investigations in 2021 against 146 in 2019, and it can now propose fines of up to $43,658 per violation. Neither the FAA nor IATA publishes how many of these incidents end in a diversion.
Flight Diversions in Europe and What They Cost
EUROCONTROL, the organisation that manages the European air traffic network, publishes a network-wide diversion figure in its economic reference data. In 2024, over 30,000 of the 9.4 million flights bound for the EUROCONTROL network area (0.32%) landed somewhere other than planned, a higher rate than the 0.250% BTS recorded for US flights the same year. The two figures use different flight populations, so the gap is indicative only. EUROCONTROL also estimates what a single diversion costs an airline.
Source: EUROCONTROL, Standard Inputs for Economic Analyses, Chapter 17: Cost of Diversion, Release 10.0.2, August 2026 (Table 17.1). Other costs = recommended value minus passenger compensation.
The recommended cost of one diversion ranges from 15,000 EUR for a regional flight to 82,000 EUR for an intercontinental wide-body, with continental narrow-body flights at 55,000 EUR. EU261 passenger compensation is a large share of those totals, up to 40,000 EUR for a low-cost continental flight, although EUROCONTROL notes that compensation applies only when the diversion stems from causes within the airline's control. At the upper end of the EUROCONTROL range, an intercontinental diversion can cost 365,000 EUR once hotels, onward transport and a repositioning flight are added. For the wider picture of European disruption, see our global flight disruption statistics.
Your Rights When a Flight Is Diverted
Under EU Regulation 261/2004, a diversion is not a separate category. It is judged by the delay and cancellation rules, and what matters is when you finally reach your destination. The regulation covers flights departing an EU airport, and flights arriving in the EU on an EU airline; the UK applies the same rules under UK261.
- Diversion to a nearby airport: in case C-826/19 (22 April 2021), the Court of Justice ruled that landing at another airport serving the same town, city or region is not a cancellation. The airline must offer, on its own initiative, to pay for your transfer to the booked airport or another agreed nearby destination (Article 8(3)).
- Delay compensation: if you reach the booked airport or agreed destination 3 hours or more late, you are normally entitled to 250 to 600 EUR depending on distance, following the Court's Sturgeon ruling (2009). UK261 pays up to 520 GBP.
- No compensation for extraordinary circumstances: weather incompatible with safe operation is listed in the regulation's recitals, and in case C-74/19 (11 June 2020) the Court accepted that diverting to disembark a violent passenger can qualify, unless the airline contributed to the problem.
- Care still applies: during long waits the airline must provide meals, refreshments and, if needed, a hotel, whatever caused the diversion.
US federal rules work differently. There is no federal cash compensation for delayed or diverted flights. The tarmac delay rule (14 CFR 259.4) treats a diverted flight as an arriving flight until passengers are offered the chance to leave the aircraft, so the 3-hour domestic and 4-hour international limits apply at the diversion airport, with food and water due within 2 hours, and working lavatories and medical attention throughout.
If your flight is diverted: keep your boarding pass and note the time you finally reach your destination, since that is the time EU261 uses. Ask the airline how it will get you to your booked airport, and keep receipts for taxis, meals or hotels if it does not arrange them; under the C-826/19 ruling you can reclaim necessary and reasonable costs.
Flight diverted and arrived 3+ hours late?On flights covered by EU261 or UK261, a long delay at your final destination can mean up to 600 EUR per passenger (520 GBP under UK261). See whether your flight qualifies.Check Your Flight
Outlook
The 2026 data so far points upward. The January-to-July diversion rate is above last year's, July set a new monthly record, and the busiest summer months are also the ones in which diversions cluster. The medical research suggests in-flight emergencies are reported more often than once thought, even if only a small share force a landing. For passengers the practical risk remains low, about one flight in every few hundred, but when a diversion does happen the typical delay is long enough to cross the 3-hour mark that triggers compensation on flights to and from Europe.
References and Sources
- Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes, US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, data June 2003 to July 2026 (downloaded 24 September 2026)
- Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance (1987-present), US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, monthly files January 2025 to July 2026
- Peterson DC et al., Outcomes of Medical Emergencies on Commercial Airline Flights, New England Journal of Medicine, 30 May 2013
- Alves PM et al., In-Flight Medical Events on Commercial Airline Flights, JAMA Network Open, 29 September 2025
- Lewis BA et al., Data-Driven Estimation of the Impact of Diversions Due to In-Flight Medical Emergencies on Flight Delay and Aircraft Operating Costs, Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance, February 2021
- Fact Sheet: Unruly Passengers, IATA, June 2026
- Unruly Passengers, Federal Aviation Administration, accessed 24 September 2026
- Unruly Passengers: Investigations Initiated 1995-2022, Federal Aviation Administration, figures as of 26 April 2022 (archived copy)
- Standard Inputs for Economic Analyses, Chapter 17: Cost of Diversion, EUROCONTROL, Release 10.0.2, August 2026
- Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 on air passenger rights, European Parliament and Council, 11 February 2004
- Judgment in Case C-826/19, WZ v Austrian Airlines, Court of Justice of the EU, 22 April 2021
- Judgment in Case C-74/19, LE v Transportes Aereos Portugueses, Court of Justice of the EU, 11 June 2020
- Judgment in Joined Cases C-402/07 and C-432/07, Sturgeon, Court of Justice of the EU, 19 November 2009
- Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 as retained in UK law (UK261), legislation.gov.uk
- 14 CFR 259.4, Contingency Plan for Lengthy Tarmac Delays, US Department of Transportation, eCFR, current as of September 2026
Methodology Note
US diversion counts and rates come from the BTS Airline On-Time Statistics and Delay Causes dataset (June 2003 to July 2026, downloaded 24 September 2026); rates are diverted flights divided by scheduled arrivals, summed across all carriers and airports (BTS on-time data cover domestic flights by the reporting US carriers only), and 2026 figures cover January to July only, so they are compared with January to July of earlier years. The set of reporting carriers expanded in 2018, which raises raw counts from that year onward, so counts before and after 2018 are not directly comparable and rates are only broadly so; carrier names are shortened from the BTS listings (for example, BTS lists "American Airlines Network"). Airport figures count flights diverted while bound for that airport, and the airport rate ranking is limited to airports with at least 50,000 scheduled arrivals. Arrival delays, completion shares and first diversion airports come from AirAdvisor analysis of every diverted flight in the 2025 BTS Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance files, which cover 14 of the 21 reporting carriers (19,258 diverted flights, against 21,106 in the wider delay-cause dataset); delay buckets are shares of the 17,527 diverted flights that reached their destination, and early arrivals are counted under one hour. The AirAdvisor estimate that medical cases make up around 5% of US diversions divides the JAMA Network Open US medical diversion rate (1 per 8,138 flights, 9 US-based airlines and their regional subsidiaries, domestic and international flights) by the BTS all-cause diversion rate for 2022-2023 (1 per 415 domestic flights): 415 / 8,138 = 5.1%. The two sources cover different airlines and flight types, and the study counts only events reported to the MedAire support centre, so treat it as an order of magnitude. EUROCONTROL "other diversion costs" are its recommended value minus the passenger compensation component. FAA unruly-passenger investigation counts come from the FAA's own published table as of April 2022, because the agency's current figures sit in an interactive dashboard with no fixed-date export. The European and US diversion rates use different flight populations and definitions and are not directly comparable. No figures in this article are forecasts.
Author:
Amy LancelotteJob/Position: Senior Writer & Content Strategist
Amy Lancelotte is a Senior Content Writer and editorial contributor at AirAdvisor with over seven years of experience producing research-based articles for international audiences. Her work focuses on travel, aviation, and air passenger rights, with an emphasis on factual accuracy, verified data, and clear, reader-first explanations.
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