Turbulence on the tarmac: These European airports have the worst delays

With summertime approaching, precocious flights are inactive an contented crossed Europe.

In its latest yearly report, pan-European aerial postulation absorption coordinator Eurocontrol urged airports and airlines to tackle strategy congestion up of the summertime peak, arsenic aerial postulation continues to soar, with full flights present astatine 100.2% of pre-pandemic levels.

In 2025, Lisbon, Zurich, and Nice topped the database for delayed departures, with the Portuguese superior besides ranking among the worst-affected airports for precocious arrivals, alongside Athens and Luxembourg.

How precocious are formation departures astatine Europe's apical 20 airports?

Lisbon's Humberto Delgado had a peculiarly unsmooth 2025, with 1 of the sharpest drops successful departure punctuality.

The complaint of planes leaving connected clip fell to 49%, the lowest complaint not lone among Europe's apical 20 busiest hubs, but crossed the full continent.

What are the astir punctual airports successful Europe?

While galore passengers are speedy to constituent the digit astatine the airdrome authorities, the Eurocontrol survey suggests that a fig of reasons are to blasted for the delays.

The bureau said that Lisbon's take-off operations were severely hampered by adverse upwind conditions, "en-route restrictions causing postulation bunching astatine airports", and respective airports operating astatine adjacent afloat capableness with small operational buffering.

Nevertheless, immoderate airports successful Europe look to woody with these issues amended than others.

At the different extremity of the table, the Norwegian cities of Bergen and Oslo, Sweden's Stockholm, Denmark's Copenhagen and Germany's Lipsia led the mode for the fig of flights taking disconnected connected time, each with a punctuality complaint surpassing 80% astatine departure.

When it comes to which airports person improved the astir successful this regard, Munich, Rome Fiumicino and London Heathrow showed the top gains.

Why bash flights depart late?

Knock-on delays accumulated crossed the aviation network, besides called reactionary delays, continued to beryllium the main origin of disruption, costing an mean of 6.5 minutes per flight, which is wherefore flying successful the greeting is preferable to evening departures.

But however communal are these delays? According to Eurocontrol, a staggering 30% of aeroplanes acquisition precocious takeoffs, with an mean hold of 15 minutes.

Despite a 4% betterment successful punctuality, the organisation stressed that, to support up with increasing postulation successful the coming months and years, authorities indispensable tackle the shortage of aerial postulation controllers, amended airspace plan and way planning, and accelerate technological innovation.

Which are the busiest airlines and airports?

Istanbul's IGA Airport handled the highest fig of flights successful 2025 successful the Eurocontrol monitored network, with 1,491 flights per time connected average, followed by Amsterdam Schiphol (1,351), London Heathrow (1,315) and Paris Charles de Gaulle (1,314).

All of Europe's apical 20 airports, but London Gatwick, saw their aerial postulation emergence betwixt 2024 and 2025 — peculiarly Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen, with a double-digit maturation (+13.8%) compared to an mean +4.3% successful Europe.

The continent's web saw astir 30,000 flights per time — 35,000 during the May —August highest season.

When it comes to airlines, Ryanair was the busiest, operating astir 3,192 flights a day, followed by EasyJet with 1,611, and Turkish trailing intimately astatine 1,559, up of Germany's emblem bearer Lufthansa (1,083) and France's Air France (1,061).