Research reveals Europe’s worst Аirlines and Аirports with the most delays and cancellations

The team at BestBrokers aggregated on-time performance statistics for the entire year of 2023 from OAG, a UK-based global travel data provider. Then,ranked Europe’s major airports and airlines based on the percentage of delayed and cancelled flights they reported over the past twelve months. According to the research, Italy’s Air Dolomiti stands as the least reliable airline in Europe, featuring a total of 43.56% of delayed or cancelled flights. With only 60.67% of its flights arriving on time over the past year, British Airways emerges as the fourth-worst European carrier. German behemoth Lufthansa also makes the top 10 list:

The least punctual airport, on the other hand, is the Frankfurt International Airport with barely a 39.27% on-time departure rate. The UK, France and Belgium have two entries each, securing a place in our top 10 list of the worst airports in Europe, ranked by on-time arrivals.

Key takeaways from the report:

• By the first half of 2023, all European flights were delayed by 15 minutes on average, exceeding the pre-pandemic average delay of 13.3 minutes.
• Europe was seriously affected by labour strikes, technical outages and harsh weather conditions on multiple occasions in 2023, resulting in an increased number of flight delays and cancellations.
• The Ukraine-Russia war has harmed the aviation industry in Europe by limiting air space, terminating some routes and making existing ones longer as a safety precaution. The implications of the conflict have affected both airlines and airports.
• Seven out of the ten least punctual airports in Europe have less than a 50% on-time departure rate.

This analysis was made using monthly on-time performance statistics for European airlines and airports from OAG. To avoid comparing major airports and carriers to small companies with just a handful of flights per week, we only included airlines and airports with more than 20,000 flights for 2023. For more detailed information about each of the airports and airlines, check the full report here. It also features the best airlines and airports, along with the complete methodology we used in creating the list.