Worst Airports for Flight Delays in Europe: 2026 Statistics
Only 52% of departures from Lisbon airport left within 15 minutes of schedule in summer 2026, the lowest departure punctuality of Europe's 30 busiest airports in Eurocontrol's data. It held the same position across the whole of 2025. At the other end of the table, Stockholm Arlanda got 82% of its departures away within 15 minutes.
The airport you fly from shapes your odds of a delay alongside the airline you choose. Congested runways, short-staffed control towers and exposure to storms or fog hold aircraft on the ground, and the knock-on effect follows each aircraft for the rest of its day. This page ranks European airports only by published datasets: Eurocontrol's punctuality and air traffic flow management (ATFM) figures and the UK Civil Aviation Authority's (CAA) punctuality statistics, with the dataset, period and metric named each time. For carriers rather than airports, see our most unreliable airlines in Europe, and for the worldwide picture our global flight disruption statistics.
Key European Airport Delay Statistics at a Glance
- Lisbon had the lowest departure punctuality of Europe's 30 busiest airports in summer 2026, at 52%, even after a 9-point improvement.
Source: Eurocontrol Special Flash Briefing, Summer 2026 - Zurich and Palma de Mallorca were next-lowest at 53% each, followed by Athens (54%) and Manchester (55%).
Source: Eurocontrol Special Flash Briefing, Summer 2026 - Stockholm Arlanda led the same 30 airports with 82% of departures on time, ahead of Oslo and Istanbul at 81%.
Source: Eurocontrol Special Flash Briefing, Summer 2026 - Departure punctuality across all network airports reached 66.3% in summer 2026, 2.4 points better than summer 2025.
Source: Eurocontrol Special Flash Briefing, Summer 2026 - Manchester recorded the steepest summer decline of the 30 busiest airports, down 5 points on summer 2025.
Source: Eurocontrol Special Flash Briefing, Summer 2026 - Lisbon was also lowest for full-year 2025, with 49% of departures on time, the only one of the 30 below 50%.
Source: Eurocontrol European Aviation Overview 2025 - Athens' departure punctuality fell 11 points in 2025, to 63%, the largest drop among the 30 busiest airports.
Source: Eurocontrol European Aviation Overview 2025 - Amsterdam Schiphol accumulated 1,190,455 minutes of airport arrival ATFM delay in 2025, more than any other airport.
Source: Eurocontrol PRU airport arrival ATFM delay data, 2025 - 90% of Athens' 760,787 airport ATFM delay minutes in 2025 were coded to air traffic control capacity and staffing.
Source: Eurocontrol PRU airport arrival ATFM delay data, 2025 - Chania averaged 13.42 minutes of airport ATFM delay per arrival in summer 2026, the highest of any airport with 5,000 or more arrivals.
Source: Eurocontrol PRU airport arrival ATFM delay data, June-August 2026 - 29.2% of arrivals at Chania in summer 2026 were delayed more than 15 minutes by airport ATFM regulations.
Source: Eurocontrol PRU airport arrival ATFM delay data, June-August 2026 - Weather caused 42.5% of all airport arrival ATFM delay minutes in 2025, more than any other cause group.
Source: Eurocontrol PRU airport arrival ATFM delay data, 2025 - Airport ATFM delay averaged 0.65 minutes per flight in summer 2026, 21% lower than summer 2025.
Source: Eurocontrol Special Flash Briefing, Summer 2026 - Manchester had the lowest on-time rate of the 25 UK airports in the CAA's 2025 data, at 64.5%.
Source: UK CAA punctuality statistics, 2025 - Only 51.4% of Manchester's flights were on time in July 2026, with an average delay of 28.1 minutes.
Source: UK CAA punctuality statistics, July 2026 - Liverpool was the UK's most punctual reporting airport in 2025, with 80.9% of flights on time.
Source: UK CAA punctuality statistics, 2025
Europe's Least Punctual Major Airports in Summer 2026
Eurocontrol, the intergovernmental organisation that manages Europe's air traffic network, publishes departure punctuality for the 30 busiest airports in its network after each summer. A departure counts as punctual when it leaves no later than 15 minutes after its scheduled time. The chart shows the 15 lowest-ranked of those 30 airports for 1 June to 31 August 2026.
Source: Eurocontrol, Special Flash Briefing: All-Summer (1 June-31 August) Network Performance, 11 September 2026. Departure punctuality (OTP15) = share of departures no later than 15 minutes after schedule, 1 June to 31 August 2026; the 15 lowest of the 30 busiest airports in the Eurocontrol network. Network-wide value for all airports: 66.3%.
Lisbon finished last at 52%, even though it improved by 9 percentage points on summer 2025. Zurich and Palma de Mallorca shared the next-lowest score, 53%, with Athens at 54% and Manchester at 55%; Manchester's figure was also the steepest decline of the 30 airports, 5 points down year on year. Every airport in the chart ran below the 66.3% network-wide rate. Traffic volume alone does not set the order: Istanbul, the network's busiest airport in 2025 with an average of 1,491 flights a day, scored 81%, level with Oslo and just behind Stockholm Arlanda at 82%. In all, 23 of the 30 busiest airports improved on summer 2025, with Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen gaining the most, 12 points, despite 7% more traffic. For passenger and flight volumes, see our busiest airports statistics.
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Lowest Departure Punctuality Across Full-Year 2025
The summer snapshot matters most for holiday travel, but the full-year figures show which airports struggle in every season. Eurocontrol's European Aviation Overview 2025 ranks its 30 busiest airports on departure punctuality for 1 January to 31 December 2025, using the same 15-minute threshold. These are the 10 lowest.
Source: Eurocontrol, European Aviation Overview 2025, 23 January 2026. Departure punctuality of the top 30 European airports, 1 January to 31 December 2025; the 10 lowest shown. Tel Aviv Ben Gurion appears because Eurocontrol's network covers Israel. Network-wide departure punctuality: 70.1%.
Lisbon was the only one of the 30 airports below 50%, at 49%, and its departure punctuality was 5 points lower than in 2024; Eurocontrol attributes Lisbon's ATFM delays to weather and aerodrome capacity. Nice followed at 58%, with Tel Aviv and Zurich at 60%. Athens had the sharpest fall of the group, 11 points, to 63%, and Eurocontrol links its ATFM delays to air traffic control capacity limits in the peak summer months and runway work in the winter season. Eurocontrol's Network Operations Report 2025, which looks at a wider set of the 79 busiest airports and leaves out Tel Aviv, reaches the same conclusion at the bottom: Lisbon, Nice and Zurich had the lowest departure punctuality, while Lisbon, Luxembourg and Athens had the lowest arrival punctuality. Across the whole network, departure punctuality reached 70.1% in 2025, 3.9 points better than 2024 but 2.6 points below 2019, and 25 of the 30 busiest airports improved, led by Munich with a 13-point gain.
Which Airports Generated the Most ATFM Delay in 2025
When an airport cannot accept every scheduled arrival, because of wind, fog, runway limits or too few controllers, Eurocontrol's Network Manager holds inbound aircraft at their departure airports. Those minutes are recorded as airport arrival ATFM delay, and each one is coded with a cause. AirAdvisor summed Eurocontrol's daily airport records for 2025 to find the 10 airports with the most delay minutes, split into four cause groups.
Source: Eurocontrol Performance Review Unit (PRU), Airport Arrival ATFM Delays dataset, release of 15 September 2026, 1 January to 31 December 2025. Totals and cause groups calculated by AirAdvisor following Eurocontrol's reason groups: weather includes de-icing; aerodrome capacity also includes the airspace management, routeing and environmental codes; other covers disruptions, equipment failures, industrial action and special events. Tel Aviv Ben Gurion (267,442 minutes) is excluded as it lies outside Europe.
Amsterdam Schiphol accumulated 1,190,455 minutes, about 4.83 minutes for each of its 246,511 arrivals, split almost evenly between aerodrome capacity (49.8%) and weather (48.7%). Eurocontrol describes Schiphol's year as a mix of aerodrome capacity regulations and weather events, with high winds and low visibility causing the highest delays. Athens followed with 760,787 minutes, 90% of them coded to air traffic control capacity and staffing, and London Heathrow was third with 361,695 minutes, 87% from weather. The ranking splits into two families. At Heathrow, Lisbon, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca and Frankfurt, weather accounts for most of the delay; at Athens and Nice (84% ATC capacity and staffing), the constraint is the number of flights air traffic control can handle. Eurocontrol reports that airport ATC capacity delays rose 40.3% in 2025, mainly at Greek airports, while weather delays at airports fell 11.4%.
Summer 2026: Greek Airports Top the Delay per Arrival Ranking
Total minutes favour big hubs, so the per-arrival figure is closer to what an individual passenger experiences. This chart ranks the 12 airports with the highest airport ATFM delay per arrival between 1 June and 31 August 2026, among airports that handled at least 5,000 arrivals in that period (about 54 a day), and compares each with summer 2025.
Source: Eurocontrol Performance Review Unit (PRU), Airport Arrival ATFM Delays dataset, release of 15 September 2026. Delay per arrival = total airport arrival ATFM delay minutes divided by IFR arrivals, 1 June to 31 August of each year; calculated by AirAdvisor. Tel Aviv Ben Gurion (10.75 minutes per arrival in summer 2026) is excluded as it lies outside Europe. Average across all airports in the dataset: 0.77 minutes per arrival in summer 2026, 0.95 in summer 2025.
Chania, on Crete, averaged 13.42 minutes per arrival, and 29.2% of its 7,998 arrivals were held for more than 15 minutes, with every minute coded to air traffic control capacity. Heraklion followed at 6.40 minutes, all of it coded to aerodrome capacity, and Athens at 4.40 minutes. Six of the 12 airports are Greek: Chania, Heraklion, Athens, Mykonos, Corfu and Kos. Some hubs improved markedly: Athens fell from 5.74 to 4.40 minutes and Nice from 5.75 to 3.93, while Zurich rose from 2.85 to 3.44 and Olbia from 1.38 to 2.09. Palermo went from 0.01 minutes to 1.76. Network-wide, Eurocontrol's summer briefing puts airport ATFM delay at 0.65 minutes per flight, 21% lower than 2025; that figure is divided by every flight in the network rather than by arrivals, which is why it sits below the 0.77-minute per-arrival average used here.
Month by Month: When Delays Hit Europe's Most-Affected Airports
The timing of delay says a lot about its cause. The four European airports with the most airport ATFM delay minutes from January to August 2026 were Amsterdam Schiphol (468,260 minutes), Athens (363,086), Zurich (248,377) and London Heathrow (160,208). Their monthly profiles look very different.
Source: Eurocontrol Performance Review Unit (PRU), Airport Arrival ATFM Delays dataset, release of 15 September 2026. Monthly airport arrival ATFM delay minutes divided by IFR arrivals, January to August 2026; the four airports with the most delay minutes over the period, Tel Aviv Ben Gurion excluded; calculated by AirAdvisor.
Schiphol's worst month was January, at 8.86 minutes per arrival, when 89% of its delay minutes were coded to weather. Athens stayed near 1.5 minutes in January and February, then climbed to 5.25 minutes in April and stayed above 4 minutes every month through August, mostly coded to air traffic control capacity. Zurich moved above 3 minutes from April onwards and reached 3.60 in August; Eurocontrol's August 2026 delay report says Zurich's punctuality was hit by weather, capacity restrictions and operational issues, particularly after severe weather on 28 August. Heathrow stayed below 2 minutes in every month. Our peak travel season delay statistics show how these seasonal swings play out across the whole network.
Weather, Capacity or Air Traffic Control: Why Airports Hold Flights
Across all airports in Eurocontrol's dataset, the 2025 delay minutes fall into a small number of causes. Knowing which one dominates helps explain why some airports recover quickly after a storm while others run late all summer.
Source: Eurocontrol Performance Review Unit (PRU), Airport Arrival ATFM Delays dataset, release of 15 September 2026. Share of 7,409,233 airport arrival ATFM delay minutes at the 398 airports in the dataset, 1 January to 31 December 2025, grouped by Eurocontrol reason group; calculated by AirAdvisor.
Weather was the largest single cause, at 42.5% of 2025 minutes. Aerodrome capacity (runways, stands and similar ground limits) and air traffic control capacity and staffing were almost level at 25.4% and 25.3%, and disruptions and other causes made up the remaining 6.8%. The balance has shifted in 2026: from January to August, air traffic control capacity and staffing accounted for 29.5% of airport ATFM delay minutes and weather for 38.4%. Weather delays vary from season to season, but in Eurocontrol's data air traffic control capacity and staffing delays recurred at the same airports: Athens and Nice appear near the top of the airport ATFM rankings in both 2025 and summer 2026.
What these figures measure: punctuality is the share of flights within 15 minutes of schedule, and it includes every cause of delay. Airport ATFM delay counts only the time aircraft are held because the destination airport cannot accept them. It is one part of the total: across Europe, all-causes departure delay averaged 14.6 minutes per flight in 2025, with knock-on delay from late incoming aircraft the largest share.
UK Airport Punctuality: Manchester Lowest in CAA Data for 2025 and July 2026
The UK Civil Aviation Authority publishes monthly punctuality statistics for 25 UK airports, counting a flight as on time when it operates early or up to 15 minutes late, for arrivals and departures combined. The chart compares July 2026, the newest month available, with July 2025 at the 10 busiest reporting airports by 2025 flights.
Source: UK Civil Aviation Authority, Punctuality statistics 2026: July 2026 On Time Performance Tables, data run 22 September 2026. On time = early or no more than 15 minutes late, arrivals and departures; the 10 busiest reporting airports by 2025 flights plus the all-airport figure.
Manchester had the lowest on-time rate of all 25 reporting airports in July 2026, at 51.4%, down from 54.7% a year earlier, and its flights averaged 28.1 minutes of delay. London Gatwick improved from 52.4% to 60.9%, and London Heathrow was the most punctual of the 10 busiest airports at 74.4%. Across all 25 airports, 65.9% of July 2026 flights were on time, against 61.6% in July 2025. The full-year picture points the same way: in the CAA's 2025 tables Manchester ranked lowest at 64.5%, with an average delay of 19.8 minutes, followed by Bournemouth (66.7%) and Birmingham (68.0%), while Liverpool (80.9%) and Aberdeen (80.2%) led and the all-airport rate was 72.7%. In Eurocontrol's data, 66% of Manchester's 2025 airport ATFM delay minutes were coded to aerodrome capacity, rising to 88% from January to August 2026.
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Lowest-Ranked European Airports by Dataset, Metric and Period
No single dataset covers every European airport with every metric, so the bottom of the table is best read source by source. Each row names the dataset, the exact metric and the period behind the result.
| Dataset (published) | Metric | Period | Airport(s) at the low end | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eurocontrol Special Flash Briefing (11 Sep 2026) | Departures within 15 min, 30 busiest airports | Jun-Aug 2026 | Lisbon (lowest); Zurich and Palma de Mallorca; Athens; Manchester | 52%; 53% each; 54%; 55% |
| Eurocontrol European Aviation Overview 2025 (23 Jan 2026) | Departures within 15 min, 30 busiest airports | 2025 | Lisbon (lowest); Nice | 49%; 58% |
| Eurocontrol Network Operations Report 2025 (4 May 2026) | Departure and arrival punctuality, 79 busiest airports | 2025 | Departures: Lisbon, Nice, Zurich. Arrivals: Lisbon, Luxembourg, Athens | Three lowest named; values not stated in text |
| Eurocontrol PRU ATFM dataset (15 Sep 2026), AirAdvisor calculation | Total airport arrival ATFM delay minutes | 2025 | Amsterdam Schiphol (most); Athens | 1,190,455 min; 760,787 min |
| Eurocontrol PRU ATFM dataset (15 Sep 2026), AirAdvisor calculation | Airport ATFM delay per arrival, airports with 5,000+ arrivals | Jun-Aug 2026 | Chania (highest); Heraklion | 13.42 min; 6.40 min |
| UK CAA punctuality statistics, annual tables (Mar 2026) | Flights on time (up to 15 min late), 25 UK airports | 2025 | Manchester (lowest) | 64.5% |
| UK CAA punctuality statistics, monthly tables (22 Sep 2026) | Flights on time (up to 15 min late), 25 UK airports | July 2026 | Manchester (lowest) | 51.4% |
Outlook
Summer 2026 showed that Europe's network can carry record traffic with fewer delays: Eurocontrol counted a new daily peak of 37,640 flights on 10 July and still recorded 17% less ATFM delay than a year earlier. The airports at the bottom of the rankings have not changed much, though. Lisbon, Zurich, Palma de Mallorca, Athens, Manchester, Rome Fiumicino and Paris CDG all sit among the 10 lowest in both Eurocontrol's 2025 and summer 2026 departure punctuality tables for the 30 busiest airports, and Eurocontrol warns of an ongoing structural lack of capacity, largely driven by a shortage of air traffic controllers at some air navigation service providers, with 13 of the network's 68 area control centres set to miss the European capacity target this year. For travellers, the practical takeaway is to check an airport's record for the season of the trip, and to allow extra connection time at hubs that appear repeatedly in these tables.
References and Sources
- Eurocontrol, Special Flash Briefing: All-Summer (1 June-31 August) Network Performance, 11 September 2026
- Eurocontrol, European Aviation Overview 2025, 23 January 2026
- Eurocontrol Network Manager, Network Operations Report 2025, edition 1.0, 4 May 2026
- Eurocontrol Performance Review Unit, Airport Arrival ATFM Delays dataset (January 2019 to August 2026), release of 15 September 2026
- Eurocontrol CODA, All-causes delay to air transport in Europe: August 2026, 22 September 2026
- UK Civil Aviation Authority, Punctuality statistics 2025 (annual On Time Performance Tables), March 2026
- UK Civil Aviation Authority, Punctuality statistics 2026 (July 2026 On Time Performance Tables), 22 September 2026
- European Parliament and Council, Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 on air passenger rights, 11 February 2004
- UK legislation, Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 as retained in UK law (UK261)
Methodology Note
Airports are described as poorly performing only by reference to a named dataset, metric and period, and only from rankings that cover a complete, stated set of airports. Punctuality rankings come from Eurocontrol's published lists of its 30 busiest airports (departures no later than 15 minutes after schedule), read from the charts in the European Aviation Overview 2025 and the Summer 2026 Special Flash Briefing, and from the UK CAA's tables for its 25 reporting airports (flights early or up to 15 minutes late, arrivals and departures combined). ATFM rankings were calculated by AirAdvisor from Eurocontrol's Airport Arrival ATFM Delays dataset (release of 15 September 2026, data to 31 August 2026) by summing daily delay minutes and IFR arrivals per airport; per-arrival values are rounded to two decimals, and summer means 1 June to 31 August. Tel Aviv Ben Gurion, which Eurocontrol's network covers, is excluded from AirAdvisor's own ATFM rankings because it lies outside Europe, but is kept in Eurocontrol's published 2025 punctuality list. Where sources differ, the primary figure is used and the difference noted: Eurocontrol's per-flight airport ATFM averages (0.68 minutes in 2025 in the Network Operations Report, 0.65 in summer 2026) divide by all network flights and are lower than per-arrival averages from the dataset; the Network Operations Report's 579,738 minutes for Schiphol matches the weather-coded share of Schiphol's 2025 airport ATFM delay in the dataset, not its 1,190,455-minute total; the European Aviation Overview's statement that Athens had the most ATFM delay minutes in 2025 could not be reproduced from airport arrival data, which put Schiphol first, so the dataset ranking is used; and the Overview's text names Vienna among airports with lower 2025 punctuality while its chart shows Nice at minus 2 points, so neither decline is quoted. Cirium's published airport rankings list only the most punctual airports, so they cannot identify the least punctual and are not used here. No forecast figures are used. Values from different providers are not directly comparable because airport sets, thresholds and delay definitions differ.
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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