UK airports handled a record 302 million passengers in 2025. Three airlines, easyJet, British Airways and Ryanair, flew more than half of all flights. Here is who carries the UK's air passengers and how well they keep to schedule.
Why this matters: the airline you pick at a UK airport shapes both the fare and the odds of a late arrival. On-time rates across the big carriers ranged from 59% to 81% in 2025, a wider gap than most travellers expect.
Key Takeaways
- UK airports passed their 2019 peak in 2025, but UK-registered airlines carried 143.0 million passengers, still 7% below 2019. Foreign airlines took the extra growth.
- easyJet, British Airways and Ryanair operated 56.5% of flights at the UK's 25 main airports in 2025.
- Virgin Atlantic was the most punctual major airline at UK airports, with 81.4% of flights on time. TUI was the least punctual at 59.2%.
UK Air Passenger Numbers by Year
The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) counts passengers in two ways: everyone passing through UK airports, and everyone flown by UK-registered airlines anywhere in the world. Comparing the two shows who has captured the recovery since 2019.
Source: UK Civil Aviation Authority, UK airport data (Table 10.3, terminal passengers 2015 to 2025) and UK airline data (Table 0.1.6, all services), 2019 to 2025.
Airport traffic reached 302.2 million passengers in 2025, slightly above the 300.3 million of 2019 and up from 295.3 million in 2024. UK airlines tell a different story: they carried 143.0 million passengers, still 7% short of their 2019 total. The rest of the UK market is flown by foreign-registered airlines, including Ryanair's Irish airline and easyJet's EU airline, easyJet Europe. The collapse of Flybe and Thomas Cook Airlines also removed almost 15 million passengers a year from the UK airline total. For a wider view of the region, see our European airports statistics.
UK Airport Passengers in 2026 So Far
The CAA publishes airport traffic monthly, about six weeks after each month ends. The latest figures run to August 2026.
Source: UK Civil Aviation Authority, UK airport data, monthly Table 09 (terminal and transit passengers), January to August 2026 and the same months of 2025.
UK airports handled 205.5 million passengers from January to August 2026, up 1.2% on the same period of 2025. Seven of the eight months were busier than a year earlier; April was the exception, slightly down on April 2025. Growth has slowed sharply from the 2% recorded across 2025, so 2026 is on course for a total close to last year's record. In the 12 months to August 2026, UK airports handled 301.7 million passengers.
The Largest UK Airlines by Passengers
Thirty-one UK-registered airlines filed passenger statistics with the CAA for 2025, from British Airways down to small executive charter firms. The ten largest carried almost all of the traffic.
Source: UK Civil Aviation Authority, UK airline data 2025, Table 0.1.6 (all services), published 17 March 2026.
British Airways was the largest UK airline in 2025, with 45.9 million passengers across its main airline, BA CityFlyer and BA Euroflyer. As a single airline, easyJet UK was bigger than British Airways' main company, at 44.5 million against 39.6 million. Together, the five largest UK airline groups carried 89.9% of all passengers flown by UK airlines. Ryanair UK looks small here because most of Ryanair's UK flights are operated by its Irish airline, which reports to Ireland's regulator.
How the Biggest UK Airlines Have Changed Since 2019
The pandemic cut UK airline traffic by about 80% in 2020 and 2021. The recovery since then has been uneven.
Source: UK Civil Aviation Authority, UK airline data, Table 0.1.6 (all services), annual tables 2019 to 2025. British Airways includes BA CityFlyer and BA Euroflyer; Virgin Atlantic includes Virgin Atlantic International.
Jet2 is the clear winner: it carried 43% more passengers in 2025 than in 2019, rising from 14.4 million to 20.5 million. easyJet UK is still about 14% below its 2019 level, and part of easyJet's UK flying is now operated by easyJet Europe, which the CAA counts as an EU airline. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are back to roughly their 2019 size, while TUI has stayed flat at just under 12 million a year.
UK and Foreign Airlines at UK Airports
The CAA also records the nationality of the airline for every passenger at UK airports. This shows how much of the UK market foreign airlines now serve.
Source: UK Civil Aviation Authority, UK airport data, Table 08 (air passengers by type and nationality of operator), 2019 and 2025.
UK airlines still carry the majority of passengers at UK airports, but their share fell from 57.5% in 2019 to 55.2% in 2025. EU airlines held steady at around 29%. The growth came from airlines based outside the EU and UK, whose share rose from 13.3% to 15.5%. Our ranking of the largest airlines in Europe puts these carriers in a wider context.
Airline Market Share at UK Airports
Because foreign airlines are missing from the UK airline tables, the best way to compare every carrier is by flights. This chart uses the CAA's punctuality dataset, which covers every flight at 25 main UK airports, including Jersey and the Isle of Man.
Source: AirAdvisor analysis of UK CAA data, UK flight punctuality statistics 2025, flights at 25 reporting airports. Airline groups combine their operating units.
easyJet operated one flight in five at the UK's main airports in 2025, ahead of British Airways at 18.4% and Ryanair at 17.6%. The three together ran 56.5% of all flights. Ryanair has said it expected to carry 60 million passengers in the UK in 2025, which would make it the UK's biggest airline by passengers, but it does not publish an audited UK-only total. On flights, Jet2 is a distant fourth, ahead of Aer Lingus, whose figure includes its UK regional services operated by Emerald Airlines.
Company Results: Passengers Carried Worldwide
Each airline group also reports its total traffic in its annual results. These figures cover each group's whole network, including flights that never touch the UK.
Source: Ryanair traffic figures for calendar 2025, reported 5 January 2026; easyJet plc, full year results to 30 September 2025, published 25 November 2025; IAG, full year results 2025, published 27 February 2026; Jet2 plc, final results to 31 March 2026, published 8 July 2026.
Ryanair carried 206.5 million passengers in 2025, more than twice easyJet's 93.4 million, spread across its whole European network. British Airways carried 46.3 million passengers in 2025, up 0.4% on 2024. Jet2, which flies from UK bases, reported a record 20.8 million flown passengers in its latest financial year, up 5%. The company figures broadly match the CAA tables, which count British Airways at 45.9 million and Jet2 at 20.5 million for calendar 2025.
Most Punctual Airlines at UK Airports
The CAA publishes punctuality data for flights at 25 main UK airports. A flight counts as on time if it arrives or departs within 15 minutes of schedule.
Source: AirAdvisor analysis of UK CAA data, UK flight punctuality statistics 2025, arrivals and departures combined.
Virgin Atlantic was the most punctual of the big airlines at UK airports in 2025, with 81.4% of flights on time, followed by Loganair and British Airways. Across all UK airports, 72.7% of flights were on time, which the CAA says was six percentage points better than 2024 but still below pre-pandemic levels. The two holiday airlines, Jet2 and TUI, finished at the bottom. For the Europe-wide picture, see our flight delay statistics by airline.
Average Delay by Airline
The on-time rate shows how often an airline runs late. The average delay adds how late, across every flight it operated.
Source: AirAdvisor analysis of UK CAA data, UK flight punctuality statistics 2025, arrivals and departures combined.
The average flight at UK airports ran 15.1 minutes late in 2025. TUI flights averaged 23.4 minutes, more than twice Virgin Atlantic's 10.3 minutes. Jet2 and Ryanair also sat above the UK average, while British Airways and Loganair stayed close to 12 minutes.
Long Delays from UK Airports in the Past 12 Months
AirAdvisor's flight database tracks every departure from UK airports. Here we measure the share of flights that arrived an hour or more late between November 2025 and October 2026.
Source: AirAdvisor's flight database, flights departing UK airports, 1 November 2025 to 31 October 2026.
The ranking echoes the CAA's 2025 data. Ryanair, Aurigny, easyJet UK and Jet2 arrived an hour or more late on 6.6% to 6.9% of flights, roughly one flight in 15. Lufthansa, Virgin Atlantic and KLM had the lowest rates, at around 4%, with British Airways close behind at 4.5%. Cancellations follow a different pattern: Virgin Atlantic cancelled 2.4% of its departures and KLM 2.3%, against 0.9% for easyJet UK and 0.1% for Ryanair. Very long delays were rare for everyone, with 3+ hour delays below 1% of flights for every airline. These are the delays that count for compensation under UK261, the UK version of the EU rules, which applies from three hours late. Our EU and UK flight delay statistics compare these figures with the rest of Europe.
References and Sources
- UK Civil Aviation Authority, UK airport data 2025, annual tables 01, 08, 09 and 10.3, published 25 to 27 February 2026: caa.co.uk
- UK Civil Aviation Authority, UK airport data 2019, annual Table 08: caa.co.uk
- UK Civil Aviation Authority, UK airport data 2026, monthly tables January to August 2026, latest published 14 October 2026: caa.co.uk
- UK Civil Aviation Authority, UK airline data 2025, Table 0.1.6 all services, published 17 March 2026 (annual tables for 2019 to 2024 from the same series): caa.co.uk
- UK Civil Aviation Authority, UK flight punctuality statistics 2025, annual full analysis: caa.co.uk
- UK Civil Aviation Authority, "UK aviation officially breaks records with over 300m passenger journeys in 2025", 24 February 2026: caa.co.uk
- IAG, Full year results 2025, 27 February 2026: iairgroup.com
- easyJet plc, Full year results for the year ended 30 September 2025, 25 November 2025: easyjet.com
- Jet2 plc, Final results for the year ended 31 March 2026, 8 July 2026: investegate.co.uk
- Irish Examiner, "Ryanair carried 14.5m passengers last month as 2025 figure hits 206.5m", 5 January 2026: irishexaminer.com
- CAPA Centre for Aviation, "Ryanair UK's biggest passenger airline with double BA's traffic?", 4 September 2025, citing Ryanair's UK winter schedule announcement of 27 August 2025: centreforaviation.com
- AirAdvisor's flight database, departures from UK airports, 1 November 2025 to 31 October 2026, accessed 13 November 2026.
Methodology
Airport passenger totals come from the CAA's annual Table 10.3 and cover all UK reporting airports plus the Crown Dependency airports of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and the Isle of Man, matching the CAA's headline figure of 302 million for 2025. Each passenger is counted at every airport they pass through, so a domestic flight counts twice. The 2026 figures add up the CAA's monthly Table 09 for January to August 2026 and compare them with the same months of 2025 as published in the 2026 tables. UK airline totals use the "total passengers uplifted" column of the CAA's Table 0.1.6, which covers UK-registered airlines on all their flights worldwide, counted once per flight stage. British Airways combines British Airways plc, BA CityFlyer and BA Euroflyer; Virgin Atlantic combines Virgin Atlantic Airways and Virgin Atlantic International. Airline nationality shares come from CAA Table 08; the 2019 "EU airlines" figure uses the CAA's 2019 category for EU operators.
Market share by flights, on-time rates and average delays are AirAdvisor calculations from the CAA's 2025 punctuality full analysis, which covers scheduled and charter flights at 25 UK airports, arrivals and departures combined. A flight is on time if it operated between 15 minutes early and 15 minutes late. Market share uses matched flights and groups airline units under one brand (for example, easyJet UK, easyJet Europe and easyJet Switzerland as easyJet; Ryanair, Ryanair UK and Ryanair Sun as Ryanair; Aer Lingus with Emerald Airlines). Ryanair in the on-time and average delay charts is the Irish airline Ryanair DAC, as the CAA reports it. Company passenger totals are quoted as published and cover each group's full network over its own financial year. The 60+ minute delay ranking uses AirAdvisor's flight database for flights departing UK airports from 1 November 2025 to 31 October 2026; it counts a flight as late when it arrived 60 or more minutes after schedule. The database lists codeshare flights under each airline that sells them, so rates for network airlines such as Virgin Atlantic, KLM, Lufthansa and Air France partly reflect flights operated by partners, and we publish rates rather than flight counts. Jet2, TUI Airways and Ryanair UK are left out of cancellation comparisons because almost no cancellations are recorded for them in the database. Figures are rounded; all data is historical.
